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

Inverted in relation to the sketchbook as foliated, these two views of coastal or riverside terrain extend across the entire length of the page. The bottom sketch records the ruins of the medieval castle at Tancarville perched upon its rocky platform overlooking the Seine. For examples of the watercolours of Tancarville which Turner 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. The kind of cliffs and headlands seen in the top sketch abound along the coasts of Normandy and the Channel Islands and on the banks of the Seine’s wide embouchure. As outlined in the Introduction to the sketchbook, each of these subjects was the subject of extensive study in this volume.