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 Tancarville Castle ?1829

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Tancarville Castle’ ?1829
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 49 Recto:
Tancarville Castle ?1829
D23794
Turner Bequest CCLIII 49
Pencil on pale cream laid paper, 107 x 156 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘49’ bottom left descending vertically
Stamped in black ‘CCLIII – 49’ bottom left descending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The page contains a rough sketch, drawn horizontally, of castle buildings on a rocky outcrop. Finberg identified this sketch as ‘Tancarville Castle’,1 and this location has been confirmed.2 Turner indicates the machicolated top of the structure known as the Coquesart tower, on the far right. (For further information on the castle, see under folio 46 recto, D23788.)
Art historian Ian Warrell states3 that this drawing (as well as folio 48 verso opposite, D23793, and folio 52 verso; D23801) was used as a preliminary sketch for Turner’s later watercolour, The Castle at Tancarville, Normandy, c.1832 (Tate D24595; Turner Bequest CCLIX 30).

Caroline South
May 2017

1
Finberg 1909, II, p.770.
2
Guillaud and others 1981, fig.657, p.325; ?Ian Warrell, ‘Turner on the Seine: Topographical Index’, c.1999, Prints and Drawings Room, Tate Britain (printout in copy of Warrell 1999), p.5.
3
Warrell 1999, p.273 no.120.

How to cite

Caroline South, ‘Tancarville Castle ?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-tancarville-castle-r1195700, accessed 20 September 2024.