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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8

Joseph Mallord William Turner The Seine Quayside at Rouen ?1829

Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 78 Verso:
The Seine Quayside at Rouen ?1829
D23853
Turner Bequest CCLIII 78a
Pencil on pale cream laid paper, 107 x 156 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The page contains two sketches, both drawn horizontally, of views of a quayside. Finberg noted this page as ‘Rouen’,1 and this location has been confirmed.2 Turner picks out the quayside buildings in some detail and includes a multi-arched bridge spanning the river on the right of the lower sketch (for information on Rouen’s bridges see under folio 72 verso; D23841). The bottom of this lower sketch could constitute a separate rougher sketch of the riverbank, but is more likely to be part of the same sketch and an indication of the shapes and vegetation of the opposite riverbank.
Art historian Ian Warrell states3 that this (presumably the lower) sketch is related to Turner’s later watercolour, Rouen, Normandy, c.1832 (Tate D24811; Turner Bequest CCLIX 246). The hill depicted on the right of the lower sketch would correspond with Rouen’s Mont Sainte-Catherine.
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 Warrell 1999), p.5.
3
Warrell 1999, p.272 no.101.
Technical notes:
There is a brownish stain at centre left of the page.

Caroline South
May 2017

How to cite

Caroline South, ‘The Seine Quayside at Rouen ?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-seine-quayside-at-rouen-r1195759, accessed 28 March 2024.