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

With the sketchbook turned horizontally, Turner filled the top half of this page with small sketches of the ruined abbey at Jumièges situated on the long bend of the Seine between la Mailleraye and Duclair. Particular attention has been paid to the changing position of the shattered building’s tall towers as seen from various points from the north. Cursory lines on the right-hand side of the page also give an indication of high hills that slope steeply down to the river at that point. For the watercolours of Jumièges and its environs that Turner worked up with a view to engraved reproduction around this time, see Tate D24696 (Turner Bequest CCLIX 131), D24577 (Turner Bequest CCLIX 12), D24642 (Turner Bequest CCLIX 77), D24774 (Turner Bequest CCLIX 209), D24739 (Turner Bequest CCLIX 174), D24783 (Turner Bequest CCLIX 218), D24638 (Turner Bequest CCLIX 73). These culminated in an engraving in 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 T05602.

A list of pages in the sketchbook featuring views of Jumièges is provided in the entry for folio 71 recto (D24021; Turner Bequest CCLIV 71).