Joseph Mallord William Turner

Le Havre, Normandy

1826

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In Tate Britain

Prints and Drawings Room

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Artist: Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Part of: Rouen, Le Havre, Caen, Bayeux and Isigny Sketchbook
Medium: Graphite on paper
Dimensions: Support: 83 × 122 mm
Collection: Tate
Acquisition: Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Reference: D23482
Turner Bequest CCLI 13 a

Catalogue entry

Turner filled this page with multiple studies of large buildings set in coastal terrain. Tate curator Ian Warrell identified the round tower in towards the top left-hand corner of the page as the Tower of François I in Le Havre. Warrell connected this sketch with a later finished watercolour: see Tate D24699 (Turner Bequest CCLIX 134).1 The artist filled several pages of the present volume with studies of this stretch of the Normandy coast around the mouth of the River Seine, a list of which is included in the sketchbook introduction.

John Chu
July 2015

Ian Warrell, Turner on the Seine, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1999, p.273 under no.116.

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