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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > Second Italian Tour 1828-9 > Lyons to Marseilles Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Moored Boats in the Old Port at Marseille, with Fort Saint-Jean in the Distance 1828

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Moored Boats in the Old Port at Marseille, with Fort Saint-Jean in the Distance’ 1828
Folio 62 Verso:
Moored Boats in the Old Port at Marseille, with Fort Saint-Jean in the Distance 1828
D21111
Turner Bequest CCXXX 61a
Pencil on cream lined wove paper, 111 x 145 x mm
Inscribed in pencil by Turner with ‘[?can]’, numbers and other indecipherable markings
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Turner’s vantage point for this sketch appears to be from the Quai de Rive Neuve on the south side of the old port in Marseille. Looking north, he sketched the quayside buildings and the dense masts of moored boats, tracing their reflections in the water. In the distance is the silhouetted form of Fort Saint-Jean, on the north side of the port. The view terminates to the right with the medieval spire of Notre-Dame-des-Accoules.
Turner’s one-word inscription is difficult to make out, although the geographer and Turner researcher Roland Courtot has proposed ‘can’, an abbreviated reference to the nearby customs canal.1 In Turner en France, Maurice Guillaud suggested instead ‘cass’, for the neighbouring coastal town Cassis.2 At the top of the page is the number ‘5’ and other indecipherable markings.
For a general commentary on Turner’s visit to Marseille and a list of comparable works in the sketchbook, see under folio 53 recto (D21092; Turner Bequest CCXXX 52).

Hannah Kaspar
March 2024

1
Roland Courtot, ‘6. Le carnet du voyage de Turner de Lyon à Marseille (CCXXX)(3)’, Carnets de voyage de Turner, accessed 29 January 2024, ,https://carnetswt.hypotheses.org/528>.
2
Guillaud, Alfrey, Wilton and others 1981, p.271.

How to cite

Hannah Kaspar, ‘Moored Boats in the Old Port at Marseille, with Fort Saint-Jean in the Distance 1828’, catalogue entry, March 2024, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, February 2025, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/moored-boats-in-the-old-port-at-marseille-with-fort-saint-jean-in-the-distance-r1209771, accessed 03 May 2025.