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 Caudebec-en-Caux, Normandy 1832

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Caudebec-en-Caux, Normandy’ 1832
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 74 Recto:
Caudebec-en-Caux, Normandy 1832
D24027
Turner Bequest CCLIV 74
Pencil on white wove paper, 174 x 117 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘wood’ towards bottom right, inverted
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘74’ top right, ascending vertically
Stamped in black ink ‘CCLIV – 74’ top right, ascending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
With the sketchbook turned horizontally, Turner filled the top half of this page with a view of Caudebec-en-Caux as seen from a little upstream on the Seine. The scene is identifiable by the presence of the tall Gothic spire of Notre-Dame rising amidst rolling riverside hills.1 Inverted in relation to the top landscape, the sketch at the bottom of the page depicts further hillsides which Turner has inscribed with the note ‘wood’ to record their forested character. For the watercolours of Caudebec that Turner worked up with a view to engraved reproduction around this time, see Tate D20235 (Turner Bequest CCXXI B), D24670 (Turner Bequest CCLIX 105), D24760 (Turner Bequest CCLIX 195), and D24818 (Turner Bequest CCLIX 253). 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 T05601.
A list of pages in the sketchbook featuring views of Caudebec-en-Caux is provided in the entry for folio 75 recto (D24029; Turner Bequest CCLIV 75).

John Chu
July 2014

1
See Maurice Dragon, L’église Notre-Dame de Caudebec-en-Caux, Luneray 1997.

How to cite

John Chu, ‘Caudebec-en-Caux, 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-caudebec-en-caux-normandy-r1173432, accessed 19 April 2024.