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

Inverted in relation to the sketchbook as foliated, the small sketches that fill this page depict a terrain of riverside hills punctuated by buildings. Turner’s cursory technique here would otherwise prevent any attempt to identify a definite location although the misspelt note towards the centre left of the page at least places the central scene at Canteleu, to the west of Rouen. The spire rising above the brow of the hill just above this note, therefore, presumably belongs to the Church of Saint-Martin on the plateau of that settlement. For a comparison, see the watercolour of Canteleu that Turner worked up around this time perhaps with a view to engraved reproduction; Tate D24643 (Turner Bequest CCLIX 78).