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 > Boulogne Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner The Bathing Beach at Boulogne 1845

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Bathing Beach at Boulogne’ 1845
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 13 Recto:
The Bathing Beach at Boulogne 1845
D35416
Turner Bequest CCCLVIII 14
Gouache, pencil and watercolour on white wove paper, 230 x 326 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘14’ bottom right
Blind stamped with Turner Bequest Monogram towards bottom centre
Stamped in black ‘CCCLVIII 14’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Amidst the rough pencil scratches and loose washes of this sketch can be discerned the wide beach just to the east of Boulogne harbour, described in the 1840s as ‘a most agreeable bathing place’ and one of the town’s principal attractions.1 Boulogne’s long north-eastern pier and its squat lighthouse dividing the busy port from the bathing beach can be made out on the horizontal line between the sheltering hills and sandy foreground expanse.
The strangely shaped structures quickly scribbled down at the centre left may stand in for the many wagon-like ‘machines’ that carried bathers to shallow waters on that spot.2 Two groups of figures, indicated by dabs and dashes of dark ochre, are included towards the bottom right. Certainly this touristic site provides a more populous prospect than the working coastal scenes featured in the rest of the sketchbook with their lone fishermen, redundant fortifications, and deserted beaches.
1
J. Brunet, New Guide to Boulogne-sur-Mer, 3rd ed., Boulogne 1840, p.28.
2
Ibid., pp.83–6.
Verso:
Blank, except for some patches of ochre watercolour on the top left edges.

John Chu
November 2013

How to cite

John Chu, ‘The Bathing Beach at Boulogne 1845 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, November 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-bathing-beach-at-boulogne-r1173517, accessed 19 April 2024.