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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8

Joseph Mallord William Turner The Cap de la Hève; River Seine from Le Havre ?1832

Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 21 Recto:
The Cap de la Hève; River Seine from Le Havre ?1832
D23558
Turner Bequest CCLII 21
Pencil on white wove paper, 114 x 187 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘21’ top left, inverted
Stamped in black ‘CCLII – 21’ top left, inverted
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Inverted in relation to the sketchbook as foliated, these drawings depict views in and around the port of Le Havre.1 While the top sketch depicts the view back inland from the mouth of Seine, the larger vista looks north-west from the quay area, past the lighthouse to the two distant lighthouses atop the Cap de la Hève. The dark forms towards the bottom left-hand corner appear to depict figures leaning over a wall. For examples of the watercolours of Le Havre’s harbour area that Turner worked up with a view to engraved reproduction around this time, see Tate D24698 (Turner Bequest CCLIX 133), D24699 (Turner Bequest CCLIX 134), and D24820 (Turner Bequest CCLIX 255). These culminated in two engravings 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 impressions T04699, T05594.

John Chu
April 2014

1
Ian Warrell, Turner on the Seine, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1999, pp.96 fig.59, 97

How to cite

John Chu, ‘The Cap de la Hève; River Seine from Le Havre ?1832 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, April 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-the-cap-de-la-heve-river-seine-from-le-havre-r1175050, accessed 28 March 2024.