Joseph Mallord William Turner

The two sketches on this page record views of the riverside village of Tancarville, located some fourteen miles upstream from Le Havre on the Normandy banks of the Seine. The drawing on the lower half of the page is inverted in relation to the sketchbook as foliated. The extensive ruins of the settlement’s medieval castle are clearly visible in both views. For examples of Turner’s watercolours of Tancarville which he worked up with a view to engraved reproduction around this time, see Tate D24693 (Turner Bequest CCLIX 128) and D24695 (Turner Bequest CCLIX 130). These culminated in two engravings 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 impressions T05597, T05598.