Engraved:
By John Cousen in 1833, published in 1834.
In this watercolour Turner depicts boats in the harbour in the town of Harfleur, located on the Seine Estuary in northern France. The tower of the Church of Saint-Martin, Harfleur is identifiable in the background, highlighted in white gouache against its surrounding background of dark sky. Turner emphasises such contrasts of light and dark throughout the watercolour. The tower’s fair, pristine and soaring vertical shape is contrasted with the dark and horizontal, ribbed, carcass-like boat frame in the foreground. The dark shapes of the boat on the right contrast with the billowing white clouds of smoke on the left. The reflection of these white clouds contrasts further with the dark boat frame immediately below them. The figure in the right foreground is also conveyed in dramatically contrasting light and shade. Turner works his materials of watercolour, blue background paper and gouache together with particular subtlety to convey the shallow water against banks of land.
The watercolour is based on a pencil sketch (Tate
D23708; Turner Bequest CCLIII 5a),
1 with reference to another sketch (Tate
D23707; Turner Bequest CCLIII 5),
2 both from Turner’s
Tancarville and Lillebonne sketchbook, believed to date from 1829.
An engraving was made from this watercolour by John Cousen in 1833, as
Harfleur (Tate impressions
T05596 and
T06225) for the volume
Wanderings by the Seine of 1834.
3 The building on the hillside in the far-right background has been highlighted more intensely in the engraving than in the original watercolour.
