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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1836-47 Modern painter > Spring Tour of Northern France 1845 > Ambleteuse and Wimereux Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner The Coast ?near Boulogne with Rain over the Sea 1845

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Coast ?near Boulogne with Rain over the Sea’ 1845
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
The Coast ?near Boulogne with Rain over the Sea 1845
D35396
Turner Bequest CCCLVII 10a
Pencil on white wove paper, 238 x 325 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘?blue’ towards centre left
Inscribed in pencil ‘D35395’ [sic] top right, upside down (see Technical notes)
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This pencil drawing has not been worked up in watercolour like the other works in the present sketchbook, although its coastal imagery is consistent. At left a tall structure rises above the shoreline while, to the right, a raincloud breaks over the sea. Though lacking a paint layer, atmospheric effects have been sought by smudging areas of pencil, perhaps with a spittle-moistened finger. The inscription (‘?blue’) on the sea by the shore, may have been intended as an aide-mémoire
Technical notes:
There is a broken margin of discolouration at the extreme left of the page.
The upside down Tate accession number ‘D35395’ inscribed in the top right corner applies to the sketch on the other side of this sheet (Turner Bequest CCCLVII 10).

John Chu
December 2013

How to cite

John Chu, ‘The Coast ?near Boulogne with Rain over the Sea 1845 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, December 2013, 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-the-coast-near-boulogne-with-rain-over-the-sea-r1173495, accessed 25 April 2024.