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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8

Joseph Mallord William Turner Dancing Peasants, Brittany c.1826-8

Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Dancing Peasants, Brittany c.1826–8
D24762
Turner Bequest CCLIX 197
Watercolour, gouache and pen and on faded blue paper, 132 x 190 mm
Blind stamped with the Turner Bequest monogram bottom left
Stamped in black ‘CCLIX – 197’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Turner worked up this colour study of Breton peasants taking part in a clog dance from material gathered on his 1826 tour of Northern France. It is based on pencil studies in the Morlaise to Nantes sketchbook; see entry for Tate D23057 (Turner Bequest CCXLVII 25a).
Technical Notes:
The sheet belongs to a batch of dense blue paper with dark fibres used by Turner made by George Steart of Bally, Ellen and Steart at De Montault Mill, Coombe Down, Bath. 1
1
Ian Warrell, Turner on the Loire, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1997, p.238.
Verso:
Inscribed in pencil with the note ‘CCLIX . 197’ in the bottom right-hand corner of the sheet. Stamped in black with the Turner Bequest monogram and with ‘CCLIX – 197’ in the centre of the sheet.

John Chu
March 2016

How to cite

John Chu, ‘Dancing Peasants, Brittany c.1826–8 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, March 2016, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, March 2017, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-dancing-peasants-brittany-r1185544, accessed 24 April 2024.