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

The small sketches on this page record various views of the village of Tancarville, located some fourteen miles upstream from Le Havre on the banks of the Seine. Riverside hills dotted with architectural structures feature prominently in the drawings on the right-hand side of the page. The ruins of the settlement’s medieval castle, perched on a rocky platform overlooking the river, are visible towards the lower right-hand corner, and perhaps also in the two sketches towards the left-hand edge of the page, drawn with the sketchbook turned vertically. For examples of Turner’s watercolours of Tancarville worked up with a view to engraved reproduction around this time, see Tate D24693 (Turner Bequest CCLIX 128) and D24695 (Turner Bequest CCLIX 130). These culminated in two engravings in the 1834 volume of Turner’s Annual Tour: Wanderings by the Loire and Seine (1833–5; later reissued as Rivers of France); see Tate impressions T05597, T05598.