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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > Northern France c.1826-32 > Cherbourg, Coutances and Mont St Michel ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Mont Saint-Michel; Avranches, Normandy 1826

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Mont Saint-Michel; Avranches, Normandy’ 1826
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 25 Verso:
Mont Saint-Michel; Avranches, Normandy 1826
D23382
Turner Bequest CCL 25a

Pencil on white laid paper, 91 x 131 mm
Partial watermark
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘Avranches’ towards bottom right, inverted
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
With the sketchbook turned horizontally, Turner filled the centre of this page with a view of the island-settlement of Mont Saint-Michel off the coast of Normandy. These were subsequently used as the basis for colour studies as Turner worked towards an engraved series of Channel Coast views: see Tate D25342 (Turner Bequest CCLXIII 220), D25379 (Turner Bequest CCLXIII 256).1 This site is featured on multiple pages in this volume, a list of which is included in the sketchbook introduction. At the bottom of the page, inverted in relation to the drawing above, is a study of the landscape around Avranches several miles to the east of Mont Saint-Michel.

John Chu
May 2015

1
Ian Warrell, Turner on the Loire, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1997, pp.158–71.

How to cite

John Chu, ‘Mont Saint-Michel; Avranches, Normandy 1826 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, May 2015, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, March 2017, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-mont-saint-michel-avranches-normandy-r1185223, accessed 25 April 2024.