J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8

Joseph Mallord William Turner A ?French Cathedral with a Trefoil Window c.1826-32

A ?French Cathedral with a Trefoil Window c.1826–32
D25016
Turner Bequest CCLXI 44
Pencil on blue wove paper, 190 x 141 mm
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram towards bottom right
Inscribed in red ink ‘44’ bottom left, descending vertically
Stamped in black ‘CCLXI – 44’ bottom left, descending vertically
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The unidentified cathedral in this loose pencil study, distinguished by its trefoil window, is partly obscured by buildings in the foreground. It possibly relates to one of Turner’s many visits to France. Finberg’s 1909 Inventory of the Bequest groups this drawing together with other works on blue paper, ‘mostly very slight in character’ and likely depicting French or possibly northern Italian subjects.1 As Finberg noted, John Ruskin dismissed most of the sheets in the bundle numbered CCLXI 1–128 as ‘Chalk scrawls on grey. Rubbish’.2 See the Introduction for general remarks on this grouping.
The verso, a spare, unrelated sketch, is D40102.

Hannah Kaspar
April 2024

1
Finberg 1909, II, p.813.
2
Ibid.

How to cite

Hannah Kaspar, ‘A ?French Cathedral with a Trefoil Window c.1826–32’, catalogue entry, April 2024, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, November 2024, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/a-french-cathedral-with-a-trefoil-window-r1209238, accessed 20 August 2025.