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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > France c.1826-41 > France: Identified or Likely Subjects ... > Artwork

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

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘A ?French Cathedral with Window Tracery’ c.1826-32
A ?French Cathedral with Window Tracery c.1826–32
D25033
Turner Bequest CCLXI 61
Pencil on blue wove paper, 127 x 189 mm
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram bottom right
Inscribed in red ink ‘61’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCLXI – 61’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The intricate detailing of a cathedral or church window dominates this otherwise sparse study. In the bottom-left corner, Turner appears to have reproduced the design of the tracery on a larger scale. The dormer windows and spires are also sketched in, although the remaining architectural features of the building are omitted, and there is little indication of the surrounding topography. Turner possibly executed this drawing on one of his many visits to France.
Finberg’s 1909 Inventory of the Bequest groups this drawing among other works on blue paper, ‘mostly very slight in character’ and likely depicting French or 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.
1
Finberg 1909, II, p.813.
2
Ibid.
Technical notes:
The paper is dotted with dark spots and there is some discolouration to the paper.
Verso:
Blank, except for pencil inscription ‘232 | O’ bottom right.

Hannah Kaspar
April 2024

How to cite

Hannah Kaspar, ‘A ?French Cathedral with Window Tracery 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-window-tracery-r1209245, accessed 02 August 2025.