Joseph Mallord William Turner

At the top of the page is Turner’s only sketch of Rouen’s Church of St Maclou, apart from a distant view of its spire (Tate D24509; Turner Bequest CCLVIII 5a). Turner would have made this faint impression of its west façade and porch with a figure at the right in Norman costume as he turned along the southern side of the cathedral to make sketches from that side (see folio 9; Tate D24516; Turner Bequest CCLVIII 9).1

The second sketch is a view of the spires of Rouen Cathedral from the Grand Cours in the Faubourg St-Sever. Ian Warrell has identified this sketch as the basis for the unfinished oil painting, Rouen: A View from the Left Bank in the Faubourg St-Sever, ?1827–8 (Tate N03384),2 and of a gouache study: Tate D24655 (Turner Bequest CCLIX 90).3 The view is also connected to Turner’s Rouen, Looking Downstream, gouache and watercolour (Tate D24673; Turner Bequest CCLIX 108) for Turner’s Annual Tour: Wandering by the Seine, 1834 (Tate T05605).4 Warrell has noted the Watteau-like appearance of this composition and connected it to Turner’s interest in the French artist’s work which he saw in the Louvre when he visited Paris during this tour.5