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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > French Tour 1821 > Paris, Seine and Dieppe Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Boats Near the Coast with the ?Cap de la Hève: Also Female Figure 1821

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Boats Near the Coast with the ?Cap de la Hève: Also Female Figure’ 1821
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 15 Recto:
Boats Near the Coast with the ?Cap de la Hève: Also Female Figure 1821
D18547
Turner Bequest CCXI 15
Pencil on white wove paper, 189 x 113 mm
Inscribed in pencil by Turner ‘Bretton cap | with white border’ centre
Stamped in black ‘CCXI – 15’ top right running vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This sketch of boats in a harbour, their sails twisting as they are raised or lowered, contains conflicting clues about its location. A female figure in the foreground is depicted from behind wearing what Turner describes as a ‘Bretton [sic] cap | with [a] white border’. However, the cliffs in the distance, seen between the sails of the two boats, more closely resemble the Cap de la Hève near Le Havre (see Tate D24517, D24545; Turner Bequest CCXI 9a, 24). As Turner seems not to have visited Brittany in 1821, but did travel along the Seine from Rouen to Le Havre, the latter is the most likely location.
For further sketches of shipping, see folio 1 (Tate D18525; CCXI 1).

Thomas Ardill
February 2013

How to cite

Thomas Ardill, ‘Boats Near the Coast with the ?Cap de la Hève: Also Female Figure 1821 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, February 2013, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, August 2014, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-boats-near-the-coast-with-the-cap-de-la-heve-also-female-r1146243, accessed 26 April 2024.