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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1830-35 Annual tourist > Northern France 1832 > Loose Studies of Paris and the Seine > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner The Church of Saint-Martin at Harfleur, Normandy c.1832

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Church of Saint-Martin at Harfleur, Normandy’ c.1832
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
The Church of Saint-Martin at Harfleur, Normandy c.1832
D24651
Turner Bequest CCLIX 86
Gouache and watercolour with pen on blue paper, 138 x 187 mm
Blind-stamped with the Turner Bequest monogram towards bottom left
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Turner carefully worked gouache and watercolour paints onto this ink drawing to depict the Church of Saint-Martin at Honfleur, Normandy as seen from the banks of the River Lézarde. Beyond the everyday bustle of the foreground, particular attention has been paid to the recession in perspective of picturesque buildings leading to the highly ornamented Gothic spire of the church. Art historian Ian Warrell has singled out a pencil drawing in the Tancarville and Lillebonne sketchbook as an important source for the present study: see Tate D23709 (Turner Bequest CCLIII 6).1 For the two other colour studies of Harfleur of around this date, see Tate D24654 (Turner Bequest CCLIX 89) and D24761 (Turner Bequest CCLIX 196). For the finished watercolour on this subject in the Turner Bequest, see Tate D24667 (Turner Bequest CCLIX 102). All this activity culminated in an engraving for the 1834 volume of Turner’s Annual Tour: Wanderings by the Loire and Seine (1833–5; later reissued as Rivers of France); see Tate impression T05596.
1
Ian Warrell, Turner on the Seine, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1999, p.270.
Verso:
The centre of the sheet bears the following chalk notes:
2 4
1 2
   3
   2
2 2
___
6 1
3 11
2 ?8
___
6
The bottom right-hand corner also bears the note ‘7’ in chalk and the pencil note ‘D24651’. The top left-hand corner is inscribed with the note ‘7 Harfleur’ in black gouche. The top left-hand corner bears the pencil notes ‘4’ and ‘4x’.

John Chu
August 2014

How to cite

John Chu, ‘The Church of Saint-Martin at Harfleur, Normandy c.1832 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, August 2014, 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-the-church-of-saint-martin-at-harfleur-normandy-r1173092, accessed 03 January 2025.