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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1836-47 Modern painter > Spring Tour of Northern France 1845 > Ambleteuse and Wimereux Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner A Beach ?near the Tour de Croy, Wimereux 1845

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘A Beach ?near the Tour de Croy, Wimereux’ 1845
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
A Beach ?near the Tour de Croy, Wimereux 1845
D35387
Turner Bequest CCCLVII 2
Pencil and watercolour on white wove paper, 237 x 337 mm
Part watermark ‘Ruse and T | 18’
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘12 May 1845’ bottom left
Inscribed by John Ruskin in illegibly faded red ink bottom right
Blind stamped with Turner Bequest monogram towards bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCCLVII 2’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
In this coastal view, a low sun has been created by ‘lifting out’ a small area of yellow paint above the horizon. The spectacular sky has been built up with multiple contrasting glazes, from primrose to black. With unusual exactness, Turner dated the sketch ‘12 May 1845’ on the bottom left corner of the page.
The dark triangular structure reflected on the water may depict the Tour de Croy. This was an offshore fort built on a rocky reef near Wimereux harbour during the Seven Years’ War.1 Turner sketched this fort on three other occasions during this tour, in both the present sketchbook (D35394; Turner Bequest CCCLVII 9) and the Boulogne sketchbook (Tate D35406, D35414; Turner Bequest CCCLVIII 4, 12). As indicated by the lone fishing boat to the far left, small-scale fishing became the main industry on this coastline as its military-strategic importance declined during the post-Napoleonic peace with Great Britain. By 1840, the former naval garrison at Wimereux had decayed to ‘nothing but a sorry hamlet’.2
1
Pierre-André Wimet, ‘Un vestige boulonnais de la Guerre de Sept ans – La tour de Croy, à Wimereux’, Bulletin de la Commission Départementale des Monuments Historiques du Pas-de-Calais, vol.6, no.1, 1935, pp.418–22.
2
J. Brunet, New Guide to Boulogne-sur-Mer, 3rd ed., Boulogne 1840, p.131.
Technical notes:
The watermark is that of the Ruse and Turner paper mill, which also features on D35386 (Turner Bequest CCCLVII 1).1
1
For this paper mill, see Peter Bower, Turner’s Later Papers: A Study of the Manufacture, Selection and Use of his Drawing Papers 1820–1851, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1999, p.87.
Verso:
Blank, except for an ‘M’ or inverted ‘3’ inscribed in pencil at the centre. ‘CCCLVII’ and the Turner Bequest monogram are stamped in black towards the bottom centre.

John Chu
December 2013

How to cite

John Chu, ‘A Beach ?near the Tour de Croy, Wimereux 1845 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, December 2013, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, April 2015, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-a-beach-near-the-tour-de-croy-wimereux-r1173486, accessed 05 December 2024.