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 ?1829

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Lillebonne Castle’ ?1829
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 41 Recto:
Lillebonne Castle ?1829
D23778
Turner Bequest CCLIII 41
Pencil on pale cream laid paper, 107 x 156 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘41’ top right ascending vertically
Stamped in black ‘CCLIII – 41’ top right ascending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The page contains a rough sketch, drawn horizontally, of a castle in a hilly landscape. Finberg noted it simply as ‘Ruined castle’,1 but art historian Ian Warrell states2 that this sketch (as well as folios 38 recto and 42 recto; D23772, D23780) was used as a preliminary sketch for Turner’s watercolour, Lillebonne, Looking towards the Seine, 1832 (D24675, Turner Bequest CCLIX 110),3 which was engraved for Turner’s Annual Tour – Wanderings by the Seine, 1834 (Tate impression: T04702).
Lillebonne is also noted as the location elsewhere.4 The shapes of the castle buildings depicted are recognisable, a house from the town below is indicated in the foreground, and the Seine estuary flows off into the distance at left. (For further information on the castle, see under folio 29 recto; D23754.)

Caroline South
May 2017

1
Finberg 1909, II, p.769.
2
Warrell 1999, p.274 no.123.
3
Andrew Wilton, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work, Fribourg 1979, p.413 no.958, reproduced.
4
?Ian Warrell, ‘Turner on the Seine: Topographical Index’, c.1999, Prints and Drawings Room, Tate Britain (printout in copy of Warrell 1999), p.3.

How to cite

Caroline South, ‘Lillebonne Castle ?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-r1195684, accessed 19 April 2024.