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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > River Seine ?1827-9 > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Rouen from the Mont-aux-Malades, with Mont Ste-Catherine in the Distance ?1827-9

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Rouen from the Mont-aux-Malades, with Mont Ste-Catherine in the Distance’ ?1827-9
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Rouen from the Mont-aux-Malades, with Mont Ste-Catherine in the Distance ?1827–9
D24900
Turner Bequest CCLX 64
Pen and ink and pencil on paper, 97 x 283 mm
Stamped in black ‘CCLX–64’ bottom right
Blind stamped with the Turner Bequest monogram lower right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This sheet is one of a series of sketches associated with a tour of the Seine with a proposed dating of 1827–9. The studies are characterised by the use of pen and ink on blue paper; for more information see the Introduction to this section.
The sheet is one of a small group catalogued within this section to have been made in a panoramic format, with each sheet measuring around 9.5 by 28 cm. For other studies in this format see Tate D24893–D2896, D24899, D24904–D24905 (Turner Bequest CCLX 57–60, 63, 68–69). As Warrell has noted, while the popularity of the panoramic format during Turner’s day may at first glance make this appear unsurprising, it was format Turner rarely used; other exceptions include some of Turner’s depictions of Petworth.1 Turner possessed a copy of Thomas Girtin’s Twenty Views of Paris, and it seems very possible that the panoramic format Seine studies took some heed of them.2
Tate D24905 (Turner Bequest CCLX 69) presents a similar distant view of Rouen from the same north-westerly spot, the Mont-aux-Malades. The sketches resulted in a colour study (Tate D25216; Turner Bequest CCLXIII 94); see Matthew Imms’s catalogue entry for this artwork in the present publication for information about a related finished watercolour. For a list of other studies of Rouen catalogued within this section, see the entry for Tate D24839 (Turner Bequest CCLX 3).
1
Warrell 1999, p.33.
2
Ibid, p.34.
Technical notes:
There is evidence of damage from previous light exposure while the drawing was displayed in a window mount, a legacy of the drawing’s early exhibition history.
Verso:
The sheet has been laid down on heavy paper and it was not possible to examine the verso at the time of cataloguing.

Elizabeth Jacklin
October 2018

How to cite

Elizabeth Jacklin, ‘Rouen from the Mont-aux-Malades, with Mont Ste-Catherine in the Distance ?1827–9 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, October 2018, 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-rouen-from-the-mont-aux-malades-with-mont-ste-catherine-in-r1195884, accessed 24 April 2024.