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

With the sketchbook turned horizontally, Turner worked two wide views of the coastal terrain around the wide embouchure of the Seine onto the top half of this page. Such cliffs abound on the Normandy coast and along the banks of the Seine’s wide embouchure, each of which were the subject of extensive study in this sketchbook. Turner’s note reading ‘Hermitage’ just below the higher of these two sketches may indicate the presence of some small, isolated structure in the landscape. The same note recurs in the Guernsey sketchbook, probably used on the same tour; see Tate D23563 (Turner Bequest CCLII 23a).