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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > Normandy ?1829 > Tancarville and Lillebonne Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Harfleur ?1829

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Harfleur’ ?1829
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 4 Verso:
Harfleur ?1829
D23706
Turner Bequest CCLIII 4a
Pencil on pale cream laid paper, 107 x 156 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The page contains a sketch, drawn horizontally, looking down onto the town of Harfleur and the Seine estuary on which the town is situated. The name ‘Harfleur’ is of Viking origin, and means ‘the high port’, in contrast to the nearby town of Honfleur, on the opposite bank of the river Seine, meaning ‘the low port’1 (for further information on Harfleur, see under folio 1 recto; D23699). Finberg identified these sketches as being of ‘Harfleur’,2 and the location has been confirmed.3
The church tower on the far right of the sketch is recognisable by its shape as that of the Church of Saint-Martin (for further information on the church, see under folio 2 verso, D23702). There is a continuation of the sketch from folio 5 recto opposite (D23707), consisting of a depiction of a church-like building, cutting into this scene vertically upwards at bottom centre left.

Caroline South
May 2017

1
‘Les origines: de la préhistoire aux Vikings’, www.harfleur.fr, accessed 10 February 2017, http://www.harfleur.fr/spip.php?article3.
2
Finberg 1909, II, p.768.
3
Guillaud and others 1981, fig.663, p.326; ?Ian Warrell, ‘Turner on the Seine: Topographical Index’, c.1999, Prints and Drawings Room, Tate Britain (printout in copy of Ian Warrell, Turner on the Seine, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1999), p.3.

How to cite

Caroline South, ‘Harfleur ?1829 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, May 2017, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, November 2019, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-harfleur-r1195612, accessed 11 May 2026.