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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > Second Italian Tour 1828-9 > Lyons to Marseilles Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Marseille, with the Old Port, Fort Saint-Jean and the Tour du Roi René 1828

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Marseille, with the Old Port, Fort Saint-Jean and the Tour du Roi René’ 1828
Folio 61 Recto:
Marseille, with the Old Port, Fort Saint-Jean and the Tour du Roi René 1828
D21108
Turner Bequest CCXXX 60
Pencil on cream lined wove paper, 145 x 111 mm
Inscribed in blue ink by John Ruskin ‘60’ top right, and ‘4’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCXXX 60’ top right, ascending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This busy composition features four studies of Marseille, the uppermost of which depicts figures and sailing vessels in the city’s old port. Beneath is a faint outline of Fort Saint-Jean, the seventeenth-century fortifications on the north side of the port. The central tower is presumably the Tour du Fanal. Turner’s viewpoint is from the south side of the port, looking north.
In the bottom-left corner is a detailed study of the fifteenth-century Tour du Roi René, with the spire of Notre-Dame-des-Accoules visible to the left. This study forms part of a more extended vista that continues folio 61 recto opposite (D21108; Turner Bequest CCXXX 60). Along the right side of the page is another profile of the city’s fortifications, executed with the sketchbook turned horizontally.
For a general commentary on Turner’s visit to Marseille and a list of comparable works in the sketchbook, see under folio 53 recto (D21092; Turner Bequest CCXXX 52).

Hannah Kaspar
March 2024

How to cite

Hannah Kaspar, ‘Marseille, with the Old Port, Fort Saint-Jean and the Tour du Roi René 1828’, catalogue entry, March 2024, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, February 2025, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/marseille-with-the-old-port-fort-saint-jean-and-the-tour-du-roi-rene-r1209768, accessed 13 May 2025.