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 The River Seine in the Distance, near Lillebonne ?1829

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The River Seine in the Distance, near Lillebonne’ ?1829
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 42 Recto:
The River Seine in the Distance, near Lillebonne ?1829
D23780
Turner Bequest CCLIII 42
Pencil on pale cream laid paper, 107 x 156 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘42’ top right ascending vertically
Stamped in black ‘CCLIII – 42’ 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 hilly landscape looking out to water in the distance. Finberg noted it simply as ‘River in Distance’, albeit comparing it with the engraving mentioned below .1
Art historian Ian Warrell states2 that this drawing (as well as folios 38 recto and 41 recto; D23772, D23778) was used as a preliminary sketch for Turner’s watercolour, Lillebonne, Looking towards the Seine, 1832 (Tate D24675; Turner Bequest CCLIX 110),3 which was engraved for Turner’s Annual Tour – Wanderings by the Seine, 1834 (Tate impression: T04702) and is the engraving mentioned above. Lillebonne is also noted as the location elsewhere.4

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, ‘The River Seine in the Distance, near Lillebonne ?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-the-river-seine-in-the-distance-near-lillebonne-r1195686, accessed 26 April 2024.