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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > Normandy ?1829 > Tancarville and Lillebonne Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Harfleur ?1829

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Harfleur’ ?1829
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 3 Verso:
Harfleur ?1829
D23704
Turner Bequest CCLIII 3a
Pencil on pale cream laid paper, 107 x 156 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The page contains a sketch, drawn horizontally, of a view overlooking the town of Harfleur (for further information on Harfleur, see under folio 1 recto, D23699). Finberg identified the location as ‘Harfleur’1 and this location has been confirmed.2 The tower of the town’s Church of Saint-Martin forms a focal point just off-centre of the sketch (for further information on the church, see under folio 2 verso, D23702).
The town is shown nestling between fairly high, rocky ground with the estuary of the river Seine winding off in the distance. Art historian Ian Warrell3 mentions that this page formed the preliminary sketch for Turner’s later watercolour showing Harfleur and the road to Lillebonne, c.1832 (Tate D24761, Turner Bequest CCLIX 196).
The three areas of drawing at the bottom of the page are continuations of sketches from folio 4 recto opposite (D23705).

Caroline South
May 2017

1
Finberg 1909, II, p.768.
2
Warrell 1999, p.270 no.79; ?Ian Warrell, ‘Turner on the Seine: Topographical Index’, c.1999, Prints and Drawings Room, Tate Britain (printout in copy of Warrell 1999), p.3.
3
Warrell 1999, p.270 no.79.

How to cite

Caroline South, ‘Harfleur ?1829 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, May 2017, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, November 2019, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-harfleur-r1195610, accessed 26 April 2024.