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 Lillebonne Castle and the Town, with the Church of Notre-Dame ?1829

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Lillebonne Castle and the Town, with the Church of Notre-Dame’ ?1829
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 40 Verso:
Lillebonne Castle and the Town, with the Church of Notre-Dame ?1829
D23777
Turner Bequest CCLIII 40a
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 castle buildings on a hillside, overlooking a town, with a church and hills at left in the background, and a wooded hillside in the left foreground. The scene is similar to previous sketches (folios 39 recto and verso, and 40 recto, D23774–D23776; as well as folios 33 verso and 42 verso; D23763, D23781), but from a different viewpoint as Turner gradually moves around the castle.
Finberg noted the subject simply as a ‘Ruined castle’,1 but the location of Lillebonne has been confirmed.2 From the shapes and positions of the castle buildings and church tower, the view is identifiable as Lillebonne castle and the Church of Notre-Dame, Lillebonne. (For information on the castle see under folio 29 recto, D23754; and for the church, under folio 28 recto; D23752.)
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 Ian Warrell, Turner on the Seine, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1999), p.3.
Technical notes:
There are two faint thumbprints at the right corner, and faint brownish spot stains at lower right and lower left of the page.

Caroline South
May 2017

How to cite

Caroline South, ‘Lillebonne Castle and the Town, with the Church of Notre-Dame ?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-lillebonne-castle-and-the-town-with-the-church-of-notre-dame-r1195683, accessed 26 April 2024.