Joseph Mallord William Turner

Town Scenes

?1829

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Not on display

Artist: Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Part of: Tancarville and Lillebonne Sketchbook
Medium: Graphite on paper
Dimensions: Support: 156 × 107 mm
Collection: Tate
Acquisition: Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Reference: D41080

Catalogue entry

The page contains three, possibly four, separate horizontal sketches, drawn with the page turned upside down. The lowest and two centre sketches continue from folio 1 recto opposite (D23699), on the left but the uppermost drawing may be a separate sketch. All appear to depict town scenes. Finberg only noted that there were ‘various slight sketches on insides of both covers’1 but the location has been suggested as the town of Harfleur 2 (for further information on Harfleur, see under D23699), and the left-hand parts of the two central sketches continuing onto the opposite page are of Harfleur, which would confirm this location.

Finberg 1909, II, p.768.

?Ian Warrell, ‘Turner on the Seine: Topographical Index’, c.1999, Prints and Drawings Room, Tate Britain (printout in copy of Ian Warrell, Turner on the Seine, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1999), p.3.

Technical notes:

There is brownish staining on the upper left and lower right of the page and rust-coloured streaking at the top corners and the bottom of the page.

Caroline South
May 2017

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