Joseph Mallord William Turner

Turner worked gouache and watercolour paints over this ink drawing to depict the hilly banks of the Seine near Jumièges and Duclair in Normandy. A small vessel and an exposed patch of rock on the hillside are reflected in the river’s calm waters. Sketches of this stretch of the Seine recur frequently in the Seine and Paris sketchbook and presumably contributed to the conception of this colour study. For lists of these sketchbook drawings, see the entry for Tate D24015 (Turner Bequest CCLIV 68). For the finished watercolour of this terrain which Turner worked up with a view to engraved reproduction around this time, see Tate D24671 (Turner Bequest CCLIX 106). All this activity culminated in an illustration for 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 T05603.

Verso:

The centre of the sheet bears the stamp of the Turner Bequest monogram and its Bequest number ‘CCLIX 73’. This number is inscribed again at the centre of the bottom edge of the sheet.