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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1836-47 Modern painter > Autumn Tour of Northern France 1845 > Dieppe Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Dieppe Castle and the Beach 1845

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Dieppe Castle and the Beach’ 1845
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 17 Recto:
Dieppe Castle and the Beach 1845
D35476
Turner Bequest CCCLX 18
Pencil, gouache and watercolour on white wove paper, 232 x 332 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘18’ bottom right
Blind stamped with Turner Bequest monogram towards bottom centre
Stamped in black ‘CCCLX 2’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Dieppe Castle is here sketched from the top of the chalk cliffs that lie along the beach west of the harbour. Both the watercolour layer and the underlying pencil drawing are unusually detailed in the context of the present sketchbook. The castle’s medieval towers, high sheer walls, and bridge approach are given mass and form by a yellow light raking in from the right-hand side.1 In the foreground, highly liquid mauve, dark pink, and ochre brush-work combines with sweeping passages of ‘reserved’ blank paper to give the effect of bright light on craggy terrain. Down at sea level, the straight lines of the beach meet on the horizon, leading the eye to the harbour-side lighthouse, the pinnacles of the Church of St-Jacques,2 and the vast white easterly cliffs.
1
For the castle’s history, see Claude Féron, Dieppe, Paris 1981, pp.22–3.
2
For a contemporary description of the church, see Jean Benoi^t De´sire´ Cochet, Les Églises de l’Arrondissement de Dieppe, Dieppe 1846, pp.57–127.
Verso:
Blank; except for patches of watercolour transferred from folio 18 recto opposite (D35477; CCCLX 19). An upside-down ‘6’ is inscribed in faint red ink at the top left of the page.

John Chu
February 2014

How to cite

John Chu, ‘Dieppe Castle and the Beach 1845 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, February 2014, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, April 2015, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-dieppe-castle-and-the-beach-r1173572, accessed 25 April 2024.