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 Evreux: The Cathedral of Notre-Dame from the North ?1827-9

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Evreux: The Cathedral of Notre-Dame from the North’ ?1827-9
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Evreux: The Cathedral of Notre-Dame from the North ?1827–9
D24903
Turner Bequest CCLX 67
Pen and ink, pencil and gouache on paper, 141 x 193 mm
Stamped in black ‘CCLX–67’ bottom right
Blind stamped with the Turner Bequest monogram lower centre
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.
Turner’s approach to this vibrant study of Evreux is somewhat similar to that seen in a bustling depiction of Louviers, a town about 25 kilometres away, also catalogued within this section (Tate D24902; Turner Bequest CCLX 66). In both sheets the town’s inhabitants dominate the foreground, with a grand church seen at the end of the street dominating the background.
Evreux’s cathedral of Notre-Dame drew Turner, just as Louviers’s Gothic church had. For a depiction of the cathedral interior also catalogued in this section see D24972 (Turner Bequest CCLX 136); Turner also sketched a distant view of the town (Tate D24883; Turner Bequest CCLX 47). As the art historian Ian Warrell noted, the present study captures ‘the strength and lightness of the chancel buttresses’, and is unusual in being partly worked up in colour.1 The form of the church is highlighted by the addition of warm reddish colouring.
1
Warrell 1999, p.194.
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, ‘Evreux: The Cathedral of Notre-Dame from the North ?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-evreux-the-cathedral-of-notre-dame-from-the-north-r1195886, accessed 25 April 2024.