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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > Northern France c.1826-32 > Morlaise to Nantes Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner ?Quimper or Nantes, Brittany 1826

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘?Quimper or Nantes, Brittany’ 1826
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 53 Recto:
?Quimper or Nantes, Brittany 1826
D23097
Turner Bequest CCXLVII 53
Pencil on white laid paper, 167 x 105 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in illegible red ink, bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCXLVII – 53’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Turner worked a loose sketch of an architectural detail onto the right-hand side of this page. Tate curator Ian Warrell has suggested that the drawing may have been taken at Quimper or Nantes.1 The pages of this volume feature many depictions of these Brittany settlements, a list of which is included in the sketchbook introduction for comparison.

John Chu
September 2015

1
Ian Warrell, Turner on the Loire, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1997, p.232.

How to cite

John Chu, ‘?Quimper or Nantes, Brittany 1826 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, September 2015, 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-quimper-or-nantes-brittany-r1184925, accessed 04 April 2026.