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

This view in Eu remains recognisable, looking to the north-west across the Place Guillaume le Conquérant past the elaborately tiered apsidal east end of the Collegiate Church of Notre-Dame and Saint-Laurent along Place Isabelle d’Orléans to the roofline of King Louis-Philippe’s Château d’Eu, to which the almost entirely illegible inscription possibly refers.

Turner had first passed through Eu, not far inland from Le Tréport in Normandy (see under folio 55 recto; D35583), in 1824, when he drew the church, completed in 1240, in the Rivers Meuse and Moselle sketchbook (Tate D19956; Turner Bequest CCXVI 203).1 By 1845 the adjacent late-Renaissance château (now a museum) was the summer residence of Louis-Philippe, King of the French (1830–1848), an acquaintance of Turner’s from his time in England, who had apparently invited the artist to visit on this occasion; see the Introduction to this sketchbook, and John Chu’s Introduction to the tour. See also the ‘Louis-Philippe at Portsmouth 1844’ section of this catalogue.

There may be a looser version of the view on folio 15 recto (D35514). For other views of the two buildings, see folios 30 verso, 34 verso–35 recto, 41 recto, 42 verso, 45 verso, 47 verso, 54 verso, 57 recto, 58 verso, 59 recto, and 102 verso–103 recto (D35540, D35548–D35549, D35559, D35562, D35565, D35570, D35582, D35587, D35590, D35591, D35672–D35673). Folio 59 verso (D35592) has been identified as showing the interior of the church, as may folios 64 verso, 64 recto and 68 recto (D35600, D35601, D35608).

There are watercolour studies in and around Eu in the contemporary Eu and Tréport sketchbook (Tate D35436, D35437, D35439, D35441–D35443, D35445, D35448, D35450, D35451; Turner Bequest CCCLIX 1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 8, 10, 13, 15, 16), as well as a pencil drawing (Tate D40172). The Dieppe sketchbook from the same visit contains what may be two scenes inside the château (Tate D35478, D35480; Turner Bequest CCCLX 20, 21).