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 ?A Steep Hill, Northern France c.1832

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘?A Steep Hill, Northern France’ c.1832
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
?A Steep Hill, Northern France c.1832
D40116
Pencil on blue paper, 191 x 140 mm
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This drawing was not recorded by Finberg in his Turner Bequest Inventory. Turner loosely worked a pencil drawing onto this sheet of blue paper in long strokes, perhaps to depict the contours of a particularly steep hill. The sketch is too cursory to identify the subject with certainty, although the verso of the sheet depicts the hilltop fortifications of Château Gaillard, Normandy perhaps indicating a nearby location for the terrain sketched here; see Tate D25093 (Turner Bequest CCLXI 121).
Technical notes:
A rectangle of darker blue paper at the centre of the sheet indicates damage from prolonged exposure to light.

John Chu
August 2014

How to cite

John Chu, ‘?A Steep Hill, Northern France c.1832 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-a-steep-hill-northern-france-r1173134, accessed 20 September 2024.