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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1830-35 Annual tourist > Northern France 1832 > Loose Studies of Paris and the Seine > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner ?The Tour de la Reine Blanche at Neaufles-Saint-Martin, Normandy c.1833

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘?The Tour de la Reine Blanche at Neaufles-Saint-Martin, Normandy’ c.1833
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
?The Tour de la Reine Blanche at Neaufles-Saint-Martin, Normandy c.1833
D24781
Turner Bequest CCLIX 216
Watercolour on paper, 140 x 192 mm
Blind-stamped with the Turner Bequest monogram towards bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCLIX – 218’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Turner worked gouache and watercolour paints onto this sheet of blue paper to depict a round tower with a low sun or moon on the horizon. Art historian Ian Warrell has suggested the Tour de la Reine Blanche at Neaufles-Saint-Martin as the location of this subject, associating it with the multiple colour studies of French sites made around this time in preparation for engraved illustration projects. Certainly Turner took an interest in this ruin around this time, sketching it several times in the Seine and Paris sketchbook of 1832; for an example of these drawings, see Tate D23959 (Turner Bequest CCLIV 40).
Technical notes:
A margin of darker blue paper around the edge of the sheet indicates damage by prolonged exposure to light. The verso is blank.

John Chu
August 2014

How to cite

John Chu, ‘?The Tour de la Reine Blanche at Neaufles-Saint-Martin, Normandy c.1833 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, August 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-tour-de-la-reine-blanche-at-neaufles-saint-martin-r1173116, accessed 14 May 2025.