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 North ?1827-9

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Rouen from the North’ ?1827-9
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Rouen from the North ?1827–9
D24905
Turner Bequest CCLX 69
Pencil, pen and ink and gouache on paper, 95 x 282 mm
Stamped in black ‘CCLX 69’ bottom right
Blind stamped with the Turner Bequest monogram bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Tate D24900 (Turner Bequest CCLX 64) presents a similar distant view of the town 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).
Both the present study and Tate D24900 are part 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–D24896, D24899–D24900, D24904 (Turner Bequest CCLX 57–60, 63–64, 68). 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
1
Warrell 1999, p.33.
2
Ibid, p.34.
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 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-rouen-from-the-north-r1195888, accessed 09 May 2024.