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

Engraved:
By J.T. Willmore in 1833, published in 1834.

In this watercolour, Turner presents Lillebonne castle in northern France, dramatically perched on a hill. The castle’s central towers are emphasised gleaming white in the moonlight against the blue sky and surrounding green hills, the white stone echoed in the buildings at lower right. A thin crescent moon and star just below it appear at top right. In the foreground Turner shows the remains of the Roman amphitheatre at Lillebonne. The amphitheatre’s ruined tiers of seating cascade down in the foreground from right to left. A pathway encircles the castle, leading the viewer’s eye around the landscape. A procession is taking place on the lower part of the path in the foreground. It is the end of the day and soldiers pass under the ruins of a castle and amphitheatre, evoking a sense of activities over and glories past.

The watercolour is based on sketches (Tate D23776 and D23779; Turner Bequest CCLIII 40, 41a)1 in Turner’s Tancarville and Lillebonne sketchbook2 believed to date from 1829. Further pages (D23764, D23766, D23782–D23783; CCLIII 34, 35, 43, 43a) also provide informative views of the structure of the amphitheatre and may also have been consulted.

An engraving was made from the watercolour by J.T. Willmore in 1833, as Lillebonne (titled ‘Lillebonne, Chateau’ in the List of Engravings, Tate impressions T04703, T05600, T06229 and T06230), for the volume Wanderings by the Seine of 1834.3 Elements of the scene have been rendered in greater detail in the engraving, in particular the livestock in the foreground; the procession of soldiers carrying flags; the path on the right; the moonlight picking out the edge of the hill above it; and, barely indicated in the watercolour, trails of smoke from two fires at the top of the hill in the left background.

Verso:

Blank, except for an inscription ‘11’ in pencil in the left corner of the sheet, and below this, running vertically upwards, is written ‘Lillebonne | with the Roman Amphitheatre’ in pencil, both inscriptions probably made by Turner. There are some pencil marks which appear to be a signature reading ‘Willmore’ at the bottom of the right corner of the sheet. The lower centre of the sheet is stamped with the Turner Bequest monogram above the number ‘CCLIX – 111’, which is also written in pencil above at the centre of the sheet.