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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8

Joseph Mallord William Turner Figures and Buildings at Dieppe 1824

Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 231 Recto:
Figures and Buildings at Dieppe 1824
D19990
Turner Bequest CCXVI 224
Pencil on white wove paper, 78 x 118 mm
Watermark ‘[smith &] allnut | [18]22’
Inscribed in pencil by Turner ‘W’ top left, ‘yellow’ top left towards top centre, ‘[?B...]’ centre left towards rear, ‘w C[...]’ | ‘Devu’ centre left towards rear; ‘[?Robion] L’Aine | [...] [?Ver] d’Eau | [...] and delau’ bottom left; ‘Vin [...] et Bon’, ‘D [?chaud]’ bottom left towards centre; ‘Vin & Absinthe [...] | ‘[D...] [...] Caffe’, ‘[?orgue]’ rear left to centre; ‘Postillions’ top centre towards right, ‘Red edges | and R[...] | cuff’ top centre, ‘Blue’, ‘O’, O’, top right on Postillions’ costume, ‘Red Cap’ centre towards right
Inscribed in blue ink by Ruskin ‘224’ top right
Stamped in black ‘CCXVI–224’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Here Turner has filled this page with an array of sketches and notes: records of the streets and people at the port of Dieppe where the artist stayed for two days towards the very end of the 1824 tour. Though many of the inscriptions are illegible to this cataloguer, the clearest seem to describe a group of three ‘Postillions’ at top right, one wearing a ‘Blue’ tunic with ‘Red edges’ and cuffs, a woman wearing a traditional ‘Red cap’, and what appears to be a list of drinks consumable at a local ‘Caffe’: ‘Vin & Absinthe’, ‘Vin [...] et Bon’ (possibly to express ‘le vin est bon’/ ‘the wine is good’), ‘[Ver] d’Eau’ (‘un verre d’eau’/ ‘a glass of water’). Turner’s annotations are fully transcribed at the start of this record.
For other views of Dieppe in this sketchbook see Tate D19959, D19966, D19968–D19989, D19991–D20014, D20031–D20033; Turner Bequest CCXVI 205, 209a, 211–223a, 224a–236, 244a–245a.

Alice Rylance-Watson
June 2014

How to cite

Alice Rylance-Watson, ‘Figures and Buildings at Dieppe 1824 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, June 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-figures-and-buildings-at-dieppe-r1174785, accessed 19 September 2024.