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 Church; Mont Saint-Michel, Normandy 1826

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Church; Mont Saint-Michel, Normandy’ 1826
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 31 Verso:
Church; Mont Saint-Michel, Normandy 1826
D23394
Turner Bequest CCL 31a
Pencil on white laid paper, 91 x 131 mm
Partial watermark
 
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 study of a church, most likely situated on the Cotentin Peninsular in Normandy. At the top of the page, inverted in relation to the drawing below, is a distant view of the island-settlement of Mont Saint-Michel. This site features on multiple pages in this volume, 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, ‘Church; 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-church-mont-saint-michel-normandy-r1185235, accessed 26 April 2024.