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

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

Joseph Mallord William Turner Interior of the ?Collegiate Church at Eu 1845

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Interior of the ?Collegiate Church at Eu’ 1845
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Interior of the ?Collegiate Church at Eu 1845
D35442
Turner Bequest CCCLIX 7
Pencil and watercolour on white wove paper, 327 x 231 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘7’ top right, ascending vertically
Stamped in black ink ‘CCCLIX 7’ top right, ascending vertically
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This interior view, composed of liquid ochre, lilac, and indigo washes, is likely to have been taken within the large Collegiate Church of Notre-Dame and St-Laurent at Eu.1 For another such sketch, see D35445 (Turner Bequest CCCLIX 10). Andrew Wilton notes that both these sketches are remarkably similar in manner to comparable Italian subjects worked up over twenty-five years earlier; see Tate D16140 and D16141 (Turner Bequest CLXXXVII 52, 53).2 Distinctive here though are the indented rows of lines to the bottom left of the sheet, perhaps to represent kneeling figures before a brightly shining side chapel to the right.
1
For a contemporary description of the collegiate church, see John Murray (ed.), Hand-Book for Travellers in France, revised ed., London, Paris and Leipzig 1844, pp.66–7.
2
Wilton 1975, pp.160–1.
Verso:
The verso is not available for inspection as the sketch is attached to its mount.

John Chu
February 2014

How to cite

John Chu, ‘Interior of the ?Collegiate Church at Eu 1845 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, February 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-interior-of-the-collegiate-church-at-eu-r1173538, accessed 16 April 2024.