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

The setting of this selectively detailed sketch, likely Boulogne,1 is difficult to make out, as are the activities of the various figures were it not for Turner’s lengthy annotations. There seems to be the faint outline of a sail to the right, and loose outlines of roofs or a skyline above. The clearest features are the arches at the centre, but none of the buildings around the harbour (as seen on the verso; D19423) survive from Turner’s time. An arcaded bathing establishment had opened earlier in 1825,2 overlooking the beach north of the outer harbour channel on the site of today’s Nausicaa aquarium, and is seen in various identified views here (see under folio 19 verso; D19434) and in the contemporary Holland book; see under Tate D19320 (Turner Bequest CCXIV 242).

If the new building is shown, the rounded shape towards the left might be a bathing machine (see folio 19 verso; D19434); otherwise, it may be a caravan associated with the traders noted in the busy and doubtless noisy scene, with a ‘Mountebank [selling] Eau de Cologne, beating a drum’, and ‘Men Trying on Boots all on the ground’ among ‘Bird Cages’, ‘Pots[,] pans [and] Cloath’ (sic). The drummer is perhaps the man with splayed legs seen from the back towards the left. The page is mentioned among numerous examples in Jack Lindsay’s discussion of Turner’s interest in music, and in Ann Livermore’s more comprehensive treatment of the topic.3 Compare the appreciative note of ‘a whole shop on a barrow the owner calling his ware and using a Rat[t]le’ at Amsterdam in the Holland book (Tate D19010; Turner Bequest CCXIV 86a).

For numerous clearer views of Boulogne, see under D19416. Compare the scene with market stalls, perhaps at Amsterdam, on folio 60 recto (D19498).