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 View of Rouen and the River Seine from St Catherine's Hill 1821

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘View of Rouen and the River Seine from St Catherine's Hill’ 1821
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 30 Recto:
View of Rouen and the River Seine from St Catherine’s Hill 1821
D24557
Turner Bequest CCLVIII 30
Pencil on white wove paper, 118 x 123 mm
Inscribed in pencil by Turner ‘Chalk Wood’ lower left
Inscribed in red ink by John Ruskin ‘30’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCLVIII – 30’ top left inverted
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This sketch continues on folio 23 verso (Tate D24544; Turner Bequest CCLVIII 23a) which was originally bound opposite this one in the book. It has been identified by Ian Warrell as the principal source for the gouache and watercolour design of Rouen from Mont Ste-Catherine, c.1832 (private collection) for Turner’s Annual Tour: Wanderings by the Seine, 1834 (Tate T06239).1 Finberg also noted that a small sketch on folio 1 of this sketchbook (D24500; Turner Bequest CCLVIII 1) contained many of the key elements of the composition,2 and in fact, of the two, the sketch on folio 1 is closer to the final composition. The current sketch, however, while differing in the foreground details does provide a more detailed sketch of Rouen Cathedral.
See D24500 for a full list of Turner’s sketches of Rouen in this sketchbook.

Thomas Ardill
February 2013

1
Warrell 1999, p.275 under no.132. The gouache and watercolour design is reproduced on p.190 fig.168. According to Warrell, Turner also referred to sketches in the Rouen sketchbook, 1826: Tate D24084, D24091 and D24095 (Turner Bequest CCLV 4a, 9, 11).
2
Finberg 1909, II, p.286, CCLVIII 1.

How to cite

Thomas Ardill, ‘View of Rouen and the River Seine from St Catherine’s Hill 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-view-of-rouen-and-the-river-seine-from-st-catherines-hill-r1146344, accessed 22 September 2024.