Joseph Mallord William Turner

Inverted in relation to the sketchbook as foliated, the study at the top of this page depicts the harbour of Quillebeuf on its long promontory on the south bank of the Seine. The tower rising above the cluster of buildings at the centre of the scene belongs to the Romanesque Church of Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Port.1 With the sketchbook turned horizontally, Turner also worked a wide landscape view of high riverside hills.

For watercolours of Quillebeuf worked up by Turner with a view to engraved reproduction around this time, see Tate D24576 (Turner Bequest CCLIX 11), D24668 (Turner Bequest CCLIX 103), and D24729 (Turner Bequest CCLIX 164). These culminated in the exhibition of a major oil piece on the subject, The Mouth of the Seine, Quille-Boeuf, (Museu Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon)2 at the Royal Academy in 1833, and also in an engraving in the 1834 volume of Turner’s Annual Tour: Wanderings by the Loire and Seine (1833–5; later reissued as Rivers of France); see Tate impression T05598. A list of pages in the sketchbook featuring views of Quillebeuf is provided in the entry for folio 77 verso (D24034; Turner Bequest CCLIV 77a).