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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1836-47 Modern painter > Tour to the Alps 1836 > Val d'Aosta Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner The Abbey of St Bertin, St Omer 1836

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Abbey of St Bertin, St Omer’ 1836
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 3 Recto:
The Abbey of St Bertin, St Omer 1836
D29036
Turner Bequest CCXCIII 3
Pencil on white wove paper, 113 x 190 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘Old Wall’ bottom left
Inscribed, possibly by John Ruskin, in blue ink ‘3’ top right and ‘320’ bottom right
Stamped in brown ‘CCXCIII 3’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This is the main section of a two-part panorama recording the Abbey of St Bertin at St Omer from the east, with the ramparts in the foreground, noted in Turner’s inscription, continued to the left on the facing page (D29035; Turner Bequest CCXCIII 2a). The abbey is indicated relatively skeletally here, but is drawn in much greater detail from the same aspect on the following page (D29038; Turner Bequest CCXCIII 4).
The Abbey of St Bertin at St Omer was founded for a community of Benedictine monks in the seventh century, and achieved its maximum extent between the fourteenth and seventeenth centuries. It was dissolved during the French Revolution, and used as something of a stone quarry thereafter, but the tower recorded by Turner survived until 1947 when it collapsed as a result of damage sustained during the Second World War.

David Hill
June 2010

How to cite

David Hill, ‘The Abbey of St Bertin, St Omer 1836 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, June 2010, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, February 2014, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-the-abbey-of-st-bertin-st-omer-r1144585, accessed 22 November 2024.