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 Building on Coast, Also Group of French Peasants 1821

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Building on Coast, Also Group of French Peasants’ 1821
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 25 Verso:
Building on Coast, Also Group of French Peasants 1821
D18562
Turner Bequest CCXI 25a
Pencil on white wove paper, 113 x 189 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
A group of seven figures is seen here from behind and includes a soldier at the left, three male figures in peasant attire, two women in distinctive Normandy hats and a child who holds what looks like a wheel. Turner took particular interest in the appearance, clothing and activities of the people he saw during his visit to France in 1821, creating in his sketchbooks a repository of French figures for later use (see Tate D24503; Turner Bequest CCLVIII 2v for references).
The sketch at the left edge of the page, drawn with the book turned to the right, has been associated by Ian Warrell with views of Dieppe from the cliffs of Le Pollet to the east.1 It depicts Château de Dieppe.

Thomas Ardill
March 2013

1
Warrell 1997, pp.28, 207 note 3.

How to cite

Thomas Ardill, ‘Building on Coast, Also Group of French Peasants 1821 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, March 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-building-on-coast-also-group-of-french-peasants-r1146258, accessed 25 April 2024.