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

With the sketchbook turned horizontally, Turner filled the top half of this page with a view of Caudebec-en-Caux as seen from the Seine. The tall Gothic spire of Notre-Dame towers over a scene of clustered sail-boats, densely packed riverside buildings and wooded hills.1 For the watercolours of Caudebec that Turner worked up with a view to engraved reproduction around this time, see Tate D20235 (Turner Bequest CCXXI B), D24670 (Turner Bequest CCLIX 105), D24760 (Turner Bequest CCLIX 195), and D24818 (Turner Bequest CCLIX 253). These culminated in an engraving in 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 T05601. Caudebec-en-Caux recurs on several pages in this section of the sketchbook; see folios 73 verso to 74 verso (D24026–D24028; Turner Bequest 73a–74a).

The pencil strokes in the bottom right-hand corner are a continuation of a river scene from folio 74 verso opposite (D24028; Turner Bequest CCLIV 74a).