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

With the sketchbook turned vertically, Turner worked multiple small views of the Seine viewed from a high vantage onto this page. In each of the drawings, a settlement dominated by a Gothic spire is depicted with the wide river meandering nearby. Both Caudebec-en-Caux and Harfleur exhibit these features although the town and surrounding terrain are too cursorily sketched too confirm a more definite location. For comparisons, see examples of the watercolours of Caudebec that Turner worked up with a view to engraved reproduction around this time: Tate D20235 (Turner Bequest CCXXI B), D24670 (Turner Bequest CCLIX 105), D24760 (Turner Bequest CCLIX 195), and D24818 (Turner Bequest CCLIX 253). For watercolours of Harfleur developed for the same purpose, see Tate D24667 (Turner Bequest CCLIX 102), D24654 (Turner Bequest CCLIX 89), D24761 (Turner Bequest CCLIX 196). These watercolours culminated in two engravings in the 1834 volume of Turner’s Annual Tour: Wanderings by the Loire and Seine (1833–5; later reissued as Rivers of France); see Tate T05596 and T05601.