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 Coutances; Mont Saint-Michel, Normandy 1826

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Coutances; Mont Saint-Michel, Normandy’ 1826
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 28 Recto:
Coutances; Mont Saint-Michel, Normandy 1826
D23387
Turner Bequest CCL 28
Pencil on white laid paper, 91 x 131 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘28’ top right, ascending vertically
Stamped in black ‘CCL – 28’ top right, ascending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
With the sketchbook turned horizontally, Turner filled the upper half of this page with studies of Coutances in Normandy, including its crumbling medieval aqueduct. Inverted in relation to the sketches above, the bottom of the page features the island-settlement of Mont Saint-Michel. Multiple pages in this volume feature sketches of these locations, a list of which is included in the sketchbook introduction. 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

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, ‘Coutances; Mont Saint-Michel, 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-coutances-mont-saint-michel-normandy-r1185228, accessed 23 April 2024.