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 Buildings above the River Seine ?1829

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Buildings above the River Seine’ ?1829
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 70 Verso:
Buildings above the River Seine ?1829
D23837
Turner Bequest CCLIII 70a
Pencil on pale cream laid paper, 107 x 156 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘Croix de Rouge’ top right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The page contains a sketch, drawn horizontally, of a riverbank, with the river in the foreground sweeping past the high bank at left, and buildings perched up on this high ground. Finberg called this sketch ‘“Croix de Rouge”’,1 taken from Turner’s inscription (which translates into English as ‘Red Cross’) at top right, but it is not clear to what this refers, as this does not seem to be a local place-name.
The location has been confirmed as a view of the River Seine between Le Havre and Rouen2 and the preceding and following sketches correspond with Turner travelling eastwards along the Seine and therefore indicate a more specific location between Duclair and Rouen; however, the church or chateau-like buildings depicted are as yet not identifiable.

Caroline South
May 2017

1
Finberg 1909, II, p.771.
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.5.

How to cite

Caroline South, ‘Buildings above the River Seine ?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-buildings-above-the-river-seine-r1195743, accessed 20 September 2024.