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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8

Joseph Mallord William Turner Ruins at Jumièges, Normandy 1832

Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 70 Verso:
Ruins at Jumièges, Normandy 1832
D24020
Turner Bequest CCLIV 70a
Pencil on white wove paper, 174 x 117 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
With the sketchbook turned horizontally, Turner worked two cursory descriptions of the ruined abbey at Jumièges onto this page. Situated on the long bend of the Seine between la Mailleraye and Duclair, the shattered Romanesque building is here depicted on its northern flank. A kind of shorthand is deployed to indicate the positioning and width of the nave’s windows, with only the top of the arched decoration recorded. Long strokes of the pencil and a dotted line indicate the broader lay of the land. For the watercolours of Jumièges and its environs that Turner worked up with a view to engraved reproduction around this time, see Tate D24696 (Turner Bequest CCLIX 131), D24577 (Turner Bequest CCLIX 12), D24642 (Turner Bequest CCLIX 77), D24774 (Turner Bequest CCLIX 209), D24739 (Turner Bequest CCLIX 174), D24783 (Turner Bequest CCLIX 218), D24638 (Turner Bequest CCLIX 73). 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 T05602.
A list of pages in the sketchbook featuring views of Jumièges is provided in the entry for folio 71 recto (D24021; Turner Bequest CCLIV 71).

John Chu
July 2014

How to cite

John Chu, ‘Ruins at Jumièges, 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-ruins-at-jumieges-normandy-r1173425, accessed 29 March 2024.