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 Coastal View of Honfleur ?1829

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Coastal View of Honfleur’ ?1829
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 11 Recto:
Coastal View of Honfleur ?1829
D23719
Turner Bequest CCLIII 11
Pencil on pale cream laid paper, 107 x 156 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘11’ top right ascending vertically
Stamped in black ‘CCLIII – 11’ top right ascending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The page contains two sketches, drawn horizontally, of a coastal town. In the lower sketch, Turner picks out the individual shapes of particular buildings in some detail. The upper sketch appears to be a continuation of the background panorama of the first. Finberg recorded this page simply as ‘Houses, &c., on river-banks’;1 however, the location of Honfleur has been confirmed.2 (For further information on Honfleur see under folio 1 recto; D23699.)
Art historian Ian Warrell states3 that this page and the verso (D23720), as well as folio 20 recto (D23736) were used as preliminary sketches for Turner’s later watercolour, Honfleur, Normandy from the West, c.1832 (Tate D24743; Turner Bequest CCLIX 178).

Caroline South
May 2017

1
Finberg 1909, II, p.768.
2
Warrell 1999, pp.110, 259 note 34, p.269 no.68; ?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, pp.110, 259 note 34, p.269 no.68.

How to cite

Caroline South, ‘Coastal View of Honfleur ?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-coastal-view-of-honfleur-r1195625, accessed 18 April 2024.