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

These previously unidentified sketches, catalogued by Finberg as ‘Coast scenes’, can now be shown to depict the northern French port city of Calais. Turner arrived there on 9 September 1824 and returned five days later on the 14th, the eve of his departure back to England.

The sketches drawn in accordance with the foliation show the coastline around Calais, the harbour and Colonne Louis XVIII at centre (see Tate D19923; Turner Bequest CCXVI 186a), and the fortifications belonging to the city ramparts including one fortified gateway with an aedicule surround (see Tate D19578; Turner Bequest CCXVI 14).

The sketches produced with the sketchbook turned upside down depict the Fort Rouge, alongside Calais harbour and its ramparts. The Fort Rouge, constructed in 1695 to defend the port, was a wooden fort built on stilts.1 It was situated as far out to sea as possible, but in shallow enough water so that large ships could not attack it. The Fort Rouge saw action in 1805 during the Napoleonic Wars, when a British naval force was tasked with destroying it.2 The attack failed, however, when the British fire ship ran aground close to the western jetty of the harbour. In the second half of the nineteenth century the Fort Rouge was dismantled to make way for a larger harbour.3 For other illustrations of the Red Fort see Tate D04199, D19925, D24879; Turner Bequest LXX 17, CCXVI 187a, CCLX 43 and Tate impression T05686.