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 Houses on a Quay, Le Havre ?1829

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Houses on a Quay, Le Havre’ ?1829
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 24 Recto:
Houses on a Quay, Le Havre ?1829
D23744
Turner Bequest CCLIII 24
Pencil on pale cream laid paper, 107 x 156 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘24’ top right ascending vertically
Stamped in black ‘CCLIII – 24’ top right ascending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The page contains a sketch, drawn horizontally, of buildings on a quayside. Finberg noted it as ‘Houses on quay’,1 but the location has been further identified as Le Havre.2 The shape of the building at the centre of the sketch, in particular its rounded and studded tower wall at left, is recognisable as that of the Tower of François I. (For further information on the tower, see under folio 7 verso, D23712.) Art historian Ian Warrell suggests that the swirling lines to the left of the tower may depict distant smoke from a steamer.3

Caroline South
May 2017

1
Finberg 1909, II, p.769.
2
?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.78, 258 note 81.

How to cite

Caroline South, ‘Houses on a Quay, Le Havre ?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-houses-on-a-quay-le-havre-r1195650, accessed 20 September 2024.