J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8

Joseph Mallord William Turner Church of Notre-Dame, Lillebonne ?1829

Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 44 Verso:
Church of Notre-Dame, Lillebonne ?1829
D23785
Turner Bequest CCLIII 44a
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 a church. Finberg noted it simply as ‘Church’,1 but the location has subsequently been identified as Lillebonne.2 Turner concentrates on the structural and decorative details around the church’s tower, elements which render the church identifiable as the sixteenth-century3 Church of Notre-Dame. The spire of the church continues onto folio 45 recto opposite (D23786). Other parts of the church buildings are indicated faintly in simple outline at left with one buttress-like structure picked out in greater detail.
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.
3
‘Parish Church of Notre-Dame, French Heritage monument to Lillebonne’, en.patrimoine-de-france.com, accessed 2 March 2017, http://en.patrimoine-de-france.com/seine-maritime/lillebonne/eglise-paroissiale-notre-dame-10.php.
Technical notes:
Brownish discolouration owing to damage likely caused by the 1928 Tate Gallery flood (see the technical notes to the sketchbook’s Introduction) is visible on the right part of the page. There is a thumbprint at the right edge of the page.

Caroline South
May 2017

How to cite

Caroline South, ‘Church of Notre-Dame, 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-church-of-notre-dame-lillebonne-r1195691, accessed 29 March 2024.