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 > Loose Studies of Northern France > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Figures on a Beach with a Pack Animal, near Mont Saint-Michel c.1827-8

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Figures on a Beach with a Pack Animal, near Mont Saint-Michel’ c.1827-8
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Figures on a Beach with a Pack Animal, near Mont Saint-Michel c.1827–8
D40140
Watercolour on white wove paper, 190 x 273 mm
Partial watermark [...]E & S. | 1823’
Inscribed in semi-obscured pencil bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCLXIII – 234’ top right, inverted
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This is sketch of two figures coaxing a pack animal on a beach one of a batch of colour sketches depicting the area around the island of Mont Saint-Michel off the coast of Normandy which Turner worked up from material gathered on his 1826 tour of Northern France. A list of the pencil studies of that landmark is provided in the Introduction to the Cherbourg, Coutances and Mont St Michel sketchbook.1
1
Ian Warrell, Turner on the Loire, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1997, p.217 under no.40.
Technical Notes:
A.J. Finberg did not designate a Turner Bequest number to this work in his 1909 Inventory but gave it the title ‘On the sands: helping the pack horse’.1
1
A.J. Finberg, A Complete Inventory of the Drawings of the Turner Bequest, London 1909, vol.II, p.832.
Verso:
See Tate D25356 (Turner Bequest CCLXIII 234).

John Chu
March 2016

How to cite

John Chu, ‘Figures on a Beach with a Pack Animal, near Mont Saint-Michel c.1827–8 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, March 2016, 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-figures-on-a-beach-with-a-pack-animal-near-mont-saint-michel-r1185593, accessed 21 September 2024.