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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1830-35 Annual tourist > Northern France 1832 > Loose Studies of Paris and the Seine > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner River Rapids ?on the Seine, Northern France c.1833

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘River Rapids ?on the Seine, Northern France’ c.1833
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
River Rapids ?on the Seine, Northern France c.1833
D40068
White chalk and pencil on blue paper, 139 x 194 mm
Inscribed in pencil ‘39’ top left and ‘232 | o’ top right
Inscribed in pencil ‘501’ bottom left and ‘CCXXII’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This drawing was not recorded by Finberg in his Turner Bequest Inventory. Turner worked pencil and white chalk onto this sheet of blue paper to depict a river rushing over rapids with trees and buildings in the background. The sketch is too cursory to identify the subject with certainty although the verso of the sheet depicts a Parisian scene, perhaps suggesting a quieter Seine-side location here; see Tate D24604 (Turner Bequest CCLIX 39).

John Chu
August 2014

How to cite

John Chu, ‘River Rapids ?on the Seine, Northern France c.1833 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, August 2014, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, April 2015, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-river-rapids-on-the-seine-northern-france-r1173078, accessed 19 April 2024.