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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > Netherlands, Germany, Belgium and French ... > Holland, Meuse and Cologne Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Views of Boulogne to the South-West from Inland, with the Château and Belfry 1825

Image 1 of 2
  • Enhanced image
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Views of Boulogne to the South-West from Inland, with the Château and Belfry’ 1825
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 79 Verso:
Views of Boulogne to the South-West from Inland, with the Château and Belfry 1825
D19535
Turner Bequest CCXV 79a
Pencil on white wove paper, 113 x 189 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘P[...?re ...lle]’ above centre, and ‘St Omer’ and ‘[?Bo... Staked]’ right of centre, both upside down
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Finberg later amended his 1909 Inventory entry (‘Views near Boulogne (?)’), crossing through the question mark.1 The Turner scholar C.F. Bell marked another copy in the same way.2 Turner used the page horizontally both ways up for two variant, almost overlapping views of Boulogne from what was then open countryside, with the coast in the distance. The viewpoints were in the vicinity of the road to Calais, running south-west towards the walls of the elevated old town, or haute ville; subsequent expansion precludes such clear views today.
Both show the Château on the nearest corner of the walls, with the Belfry (the Beffroi) beyond. Today, the latter would be overshadowed by the prominent dome of the basilica of Notre Dame. In the upper view, a man appears to recline in the foreground, watching the artist. The lower, inverted view is from slightly to the left of the upper, and from a more elevated position, with the road east to ‘St Omer’ marked below on the left. The other inscriptions are less clear. Compare a detailed 1846 pencil drawing over the fields by the history and genre painter Eyre Crowe (1824–1910; Tate T08911).
Views from inland on immediately adjacent pages and elsewhere in this sketchbook and others are discussed under folio 18 verso (D19432); for Boulogne in general, see under folio 8 verso (D19416).

Matthew Imms
September 2020

1
Undated MS note by Finberg (died 1939) in interleaved copy of Finberg 1909, Prints and Drawings Room, Tate Britain, II, p.665.
2
Undated MS note by Bell (died 1966) in copy of Finberg 1909, Prints and Drawings Room, Tate Britain, II, p.665.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Views of Boulogne to the South-West from Inland, with the Château and Belfry 1825 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, September 2020, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, March 2023, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-views-of-boulogne-to-the-south-west-from-inland-with-the-r1202875, accessed 08 May 2025.