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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1836-47 Modern painter > South-Eastern France and Genoa 1838 > Coast of Genoa Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Five Views of Toulon, including the Fontaine des Trois-Dauphins, the Arsenal and the Port 1838

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  • Enhanced image
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Five Views of Toulon, including the Fontaine des Trois-Dauphins, the Arsenal and the Port’ 1838
Folio 2 Recto:
Five Views of Toulon, including the Fontaine des Trois-Dauphins, the Arsenal and the Port 1838
D21273
Turner Bequest CCXXXII 2
Pencil on white wove paper, 157 x 98 mm
Inscribed in red ink ‘2’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCXXXII 2’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Geographer and Turner researcher Roland Courtot has identified the subject of the sketches on this page as Toulon, a city on France’s Mediterranean coast, approximately thirty miles south-east of Marseille.1 The studies include, from top to bottom: the distinctive shape of the eighteenth-century Fontaine des Trois-Dauphins (Fountain of the Three Dolphins) in the Place Puget; the entrance of the Arsenal in the old port; a distant view of the harbour with the mountains beyond; the sea walls of the Arsenal and the port; and boats within the port.
Toulon represents the starting point of the journey described in this sketchbook. Upon leaving the city, Turner appears to have travelled inland to his next destination, Fréjus. For a detailed overview of his itinerary, see the Introduction to this sketchbook.
Additional sketches of Toulon are included on folio 1 verso opposite (D21272).
1
Roland Courtot, ‘Carnet de voyage de Turner: 9. Notebook CCXXXII “Côte de Génès” (1838?)’, Hypotheses, 24 August 2018, accessed 24 June 2024, https://carnetswt.hypotheses.org/949.
Technical notes:
There is a small, brown stain, just above the centre of the page.

Nicola Moorby
October 2018

Revised by Hayley Flynn
June 2025

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘Five Views of Toulon, including the Fontaine des Trois-Dauphins, the Arsenal and the Port 1838’, catalogue entry, October 2018, revised by Hayley Flynn, June 2025, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, July 2026, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/five-views-of-toulon-including-the-fontaine-des-trois-dauphins-the-arsenal-and-the-port-r1213450, accessed 17 September 2026.