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 Coutances, Normandy 1826

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Coutances, Normandy’ 1826
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Coutances, Normandy 1826
D34509
Turner Bequest CCCXLIV d 145
Pencil on white wove paper, 242 x 192 mm
Watermark ‘IVY MILL | 1816’
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘Cloth [...] Ble[...]’ bottom right
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘145’ bottom right
Blind stamped with the Turner Bequest monogram bottom centre
Stamped in black ‘CCCXLIV 145’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
These two sketches belong to a group of views of the medieval Normandy town of Coutances which Turner worked onto a batch of white ‘Ivy Mill’ watermarked paper on his 1826 tour of Northern France.1 A list of these is provided in the Introduction to this section.
1
Ian Warrell, Turner on the Loire, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1997, p.23.
Technical Notes:
The sheet of paper bears a horizontal crease across the centre where it has been folded in two.
Verso:
Inscribed in red ink ‘56. A.5’ in the bottom left-hand corner of the sheet. Inscribed in pencil with the note ‘D. 34509’ in the bottom left-hand corner.

John Chu
March 2016

How to cite

John Chu, ‘Coutances, Normandy 1826 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-coutances-normandy-r1185608, accessed 18 September 2024.