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 Rouen in the Distance, with the River Seine ?1829

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Rouen in the Distance, with the River Seine’ ?1829
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 75 Recto:
Rouen in the Distance, with the River Seine ?1829
D23846
Turner Bequest CCLIII 75
Pencil on pale cream laid paper, 107 x 156 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘75’ bottom left descending vertically
Stamped in black ‘CCLIII – 75’ bottom left descending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The page contains a sketch, drawn horizontally, looking across the bank of a river to boats on the water, hills beyond and buildings to the right. Finberg identified it as ‘Rouen in distance’,1 and the subject has been confirmed.2 The sketch is rough, yet Turner conveys a sense of space and distance, particularly towards the hills on the opposite bank of the River Seine and to the right.

Caroline South
May 2017

1
Finberg 1909, II, p.771.
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.

How to cite

Caroline South, ‘Rouen in the Distance, with 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-rouen-in-the-distance-with-the-river-seine-r1195752, accessed 26 April 2024.