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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8

Joseph Mallord William Turner The Collegiate Church of Notre-Dame and St-Laurent at Eu 1845

Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
The Collegiate Church of Notre-Dame and St-Laurent at Eu 1845
D35451
Turner Bequest CCCLIX 16
Pencil and watercolour on white wove paper, 232 x 328 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘[...] | E Profil [...]’ bottom right
Blind stamped with Turner Bequest monogram towards bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This much exhibited view of Eu’s medieval collégiale, or ‘collegiate church’, of Notre-Dame and St-Laurent is taken from the little ‘irregular market-place’ to the south-east of the edifice, the steep incline of which contributes to the impression of towering height.1 Ian Warrell traces the use of a low viewpoint in this sketch to the Turner’s training in the studio of the topographical and architectural artist, Thomas Malton (1748–1804).2 To the left of the church, liquid blue washes have swamped the pencil drawing of the Château d’Eu, the summer palace of King Louis-Philippe, whose possible connection with the trip is laid out in the tour Introduction.
A market scene is drawn on the verso of this sheet (D40172).

John Chu
February 2014

1
John Murray (ed.), Hand-Book for Travellers in France, revised ed., London, Paris and Leipzig 1844, pp.66–7; see also Richard Snailham, Normandy and Brittany: from Le Tréport to St-Nazaire, London c.1986, p.66.
2
Warrell and Perkins 1988, p.20.

How to cite

John Chu, ‘The Collegiate Church of Notre-Dame and St-Laurent 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-the-collegiate-church-of-notre-dame-and-st-laurent-at-eu-r1173547, accessed 25 April 2024.