Joseph Mallord William Turner

Houses on a Quay, Le Havre

?1829

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Not on display

Artist
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Part of
Tancarville and Lillebonne Sketchbook
Medium
Graphite on paper
Dimensions
Support: 107 × 156 mm
Collection
Tate
Acquisition
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Reference
D23744
Turner Bequest CCLIII 24

Catalogue entry

The page contains a sketch, drawn horizontally, of buildings on a quayside. Finberg noted it as ‘Houses on quay’,1 but the location has been further identified as Le Havre.2 The shape of the building at the centre of the sketch, in particular its rounded and studded tower wall at left, is recognisable as that of the Tower of François I. (For further information on the tower, see under folio 7 verso, D23712.) Art historian Ian Warrell suggests that the swirling lines to the left of the tower may depict distant smoke from a steamer.3

Caroline South
May 2017

1
Finberg 1909, II, p.769.
2
?Ian Warrell, ‘Turner on the Seine: Topographical Index’, c.1999, Prints and Drawings Room, Tate Britain (printout in copy of Warrell 1999), p.3.
3
Warrell 1999, pp.78, 258 note 81.

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