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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1830-35 Annual tourist > Northern France 1832 > Loose Studies of Paris and the Seine > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Honfleur, Normandy from the West c.1832

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Honfleur, Normandy from the West’ c.1832
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Honfleur, Normandy from the West c.1832
D24744
Turner Bequest CCLIX 179
Gouache and watercolour on blue paper, 140 x 192 mm
Blind-stamped with the Turner Bequest monogram bottom left
Stamped in black ‘CCLIX – 179’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Turner worked gouache and watercolour paints onto this sheet of blue paper to depict a view across the port of Honfleur, Normandy from the high ground to the west. The expansive vista carries the eye from the wooded foreground, past the densely packed port area, and out to the wide embouchure of the Seine. This is one of seven colour studies of Honfleur which Turner worked up around this date with a view to potential publication; these are listed under the entry for Tate D24580 (Turner Bequest CCLIX 15). For the finished watercolour on this subject, see Tate D24700 (Turner Bequest CCLIX 135). All this activity culminated in an engraved illustration for 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 T04707.
Technical notes:
The verso of this sheet is attached to the mount.

John Chu
August 2014

How to cite

John Chu, ‘Honfleur, Normandy from the West c.1832 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, August 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-honfleur-normandy-from-the-west-r1173107, accessed 19 April 2024.