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 > Seine and Paris Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Duclair, Normandy 1832

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Duclair, Normandy’ 1832
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 67 Recto:
Duclair, Normandy 1832
D24013
Turner Bequest CCLIV 67
Pencil on white wove paper, 174 x 117 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘Br[...]’ centre, ‘Light G White’ bottom centre
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘67’ top left, inverted
Stamped in black ink ‘CCLIV – 67’ top left, inverted
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Inverted in relation to the sketchbook as foliated, the small drawings that fill this page were taken along the banks of the Seine, presumably close to Duclair on the river’s right bank. Certainly, the rocky outcrops at the top of the page, known as La Chaise (or Chaire) de Gargantua, were drawn in the vicinity of that settlement. The Gothic church spire at the centre of the page may therefore depict the associated twelfth-century Church of Saint-Denis. For the watercolours of Duclair that Turner worked up with a view to engraved reproduction around this time, see Tate D24671 (Turner Bequest CCLIX 106), D24739 (Turner Bequest CCLIX 174), and D24774 (Turner Bequest CCLIX 209). These culminated in an engraving in the 1834 volume of Turner’s Annual Tour: Wanderings by the Loire and Seine (1833–5; later reissued as Rivers of France); see Tate impression T05603.
A list of pages in the sketchbook featuring views of Duclair is under the entry for folio 68 recto (D24015; Turner Bequest CCLIV 68).

John Chu
July 2014

How to cite

John Chu, ‘Duclair, Normandy 1832 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, July 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-duclair-normandy-r1173418, accessed 26 April 2024.