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 > Dieppe, Rouen and Paris Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Dogs Foraging at the Quayside in Rouen; Another Sketch of the Quayside Rouen; and two Sketches Inscribed 'St. Vallery' 1821

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Dogs Foraging at the Quayside in Rouen; Another Sketch of the Quayside Rouen; and two Sketches Inscribed 'St. Vallery'’ 1821
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 21 Recto:
Dogs Foraging at the Quayside in Rouen; Another Sketch of the Quayside Rouen; and two Sketches Inscribed ‘St. Vallery’ 1821
D24539
Turner Bequest CCLVIII 21
Pencil on white wove paper, 123 x 118 mm
Inscribed in pencil by Turner ‘St. Vallery. S. Cx’ top right, ?‘dito’ upper centre, ‘Dogs Forage’ lower left
Inscribed in red ink by John Ruskin ‘21’ top right running vertically
Stamped in black ‘CCLVIII – 21’ top right running vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
At least some of these sketches are likely to have been made at Rouen; unfortunately Turner’s inscription at the top of the page (‘St. Vallery. S. Cx’) has not proved helpful. At the top is a sketch of cliffs at a harbour. The gateway depicted in the second sketch is the same structure depicted on a quayside on folio 9 verso (Tate D24517; Turner Bequest CCLVIII 9a). The third sketch of boats in a harbour with figures working and ‘Dogs foraging’ on the quayside may be at Rouen. Ian Warrell has suggested that the distant hills may be those of Canteleu to the west of the city.1 The sketch at the bottom was drawn with the sketchbook inverted. It depicts a quayside with waggons and construction machinery including a crane. Ian Warrell has noted in connection to this sketch that the English artist Richard Parkes Bonington (1802–1828), who worked in France, sketched pile drivers at Rouen.2

Thomas Ardill
February 2013

1
Ian Warrell, Turner catalogue files, Tate, CCLVIII 21.
2
Ibid. See Patrick Noon, Richard Parkes Bonington: The Complete Drawings, New Haven and London 2011.

How to cite

Thomas Ardill, ‘Dogs Foraging at the Quayside in Rouen; Another Sketch of the Quayside Rouen; and two Sketches Inscribed ‘St. Vallery’ 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-dogs-foraging-at-the-quayside-in-rouen-another-sketch-of-the-r1146326, accessed 19 April 2024.