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 Tancarville Castle ?1829

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Tancarville Castle’ ?1829
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 52 Verso:
Tancarville Castle ?1829
D23801
Turner Bequest CCLIII 52a
Pencil on pale cream laid paper, 107 x 156 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The page appears to contain two sketches, both drawn horizontally, the lower sketch with the page turned upside down. Finberg identified this page as ‘Tancarville Castle’,1 and this location has been confirmed.2 The upper sketch depicts a view over a hilly landscape with a structure in the foreground whose shape corresponds to some degree to that of the Tour de l’Aigle (eagle tower) located at the northern end of Tancarville castle.3
The lower sketch appears to depict the buildings of the castle, including the machicolated Coquesart tower at far right. (For further information on the castle, see under folio 46 recto; D23788.) Art historian Ian Warrell states that this page, presumably the lower sketch (as well as folios 48 verso and 49 recto; D23793–D23794) was used as the preliminary sketch for Turner’s later watercolour, The Castle at Tancarville, Normandy, c.1832 (D24595, Turner Bequest CCLIX 30).

Caroline South
May 2017

1
Finberg 1909, II, p.770.
2
?Ian Warrell, ‘Turner on the Seine: Topographical Index’, c.1999, Prints and Drawings Room, Tate Britain (printout in copy of Warrell 1999), p.5.
3
Jean Mesqui, ‘Le Château de Tancarville’, www. tancarville.free.fr, accessed 8 May 2017, http://tancarville.free.fr/jeanmesqui.pdf, pp.3, 12.

How to cite

Caroline South, ‘Tancarville 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-tancarville-castle-r1195707, accessed 23 September 2024.