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 The Hill at Canteleu near Rouen ?1829

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Hill at Canteleu near Rouen’ ?1829
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 74 Recto:
The Hill at Canteleu near Rouen ?1829
D23844
Turner Bequest CCLIII 74
Pencil on pale cream laid paper, 107 x 156 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘74’ top right ascending vertically
Stamped in black ‘CCLIII – 74’ top right ascending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The page contains a sketch, drawn horizontally, of a view over a river towards buildings and high rocky ground. Finberg identified it as ‘Hill near Rouen’.1 The location has been further specified as Canteleu, with a view of Rouen.2 Canteleu is a town on the River Seine to the north-west of the city. In this rough sketch Turner nevertheless conveys the shore stretching ahead and he picks out elements such as the tall rectangular building at left, the craggy outline at the top of the hill at centre, a church tower at top right, and a ship at mid-distance on the left.
Art historian Ian Warrell states that this (with reference also to folios 75 verso and 77 verso; D23847, D23851) was the preliminary sketch for Turner’s watercolour, Shipping at Canteleu, Normandy, c.1832 (Tate D24643; Turner Bequest CCLIX 78).
1
Finberg 1909, II, p.771.
2
Warrell 1999, p.271 no.99; ?Ian Warrell, ‘Turner on the Seine: Topographical Index’, c.1999, Prints and Drawings Room, Tate Britain (printout in copy of Warrell 1999), p.2.
Technical notes:
There is brownish discolouration on this page, the edge of the staining apparent on the lower right, from damage likely caused by the 1928 Tate Gallery flood (see the technical notes to the sketchbook’s Introduction).

Caroline South
May 2017

How to cite

Caroline South, ‘The Hill at Canteleu near Rouen ?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-the-hill-at-canteleu-near-rouen-r1195750, accessed 05 April 2026.