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 Heights, from the River Seine ?1829

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Heights, from the River Seine’ ?1829
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 62 Verso:
Heights, from the River Seine ?1829
D23821
Turner Bequest CCLIII 62a
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, of high hills, with buildings nestled on the left, and a small depiction of a sailboat below indicating the river at bottom. Finberg called it simply ‘Heights, from the river’,1 and the location has been further specified as a view of the Seine between Le Havre and Rouen.2
Preceding drawings in the sketchbook are of Jumièges, the following of river views, and then the town of Duclair, consistent with Turner travelling eastwards upriver and indicating that this sketch can be specified further to a view from the Seine between Jumièges and Duclair. In a few simple lines Turner conveys sheer rock on the cliffs, and vegetation, in particular at lower left, and continues the view into the distance at top right.
1
Finberg 1909, II, p.770.
2
?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.5.
Technical notes:
There are brownish stain spots in the lower left corner of the page.

Caroline South
May 2017

How to cite

Caroline South, ‘Heights, from the River Seine ?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-heights-from-the-river-seine-r1195727, accessed 04 April 2026.