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

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

Joseph Mallord William Turner The Church of St-Jacques and Dieppe Harbour 1845

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Church of St-Jacques and Dieppe Harbour’ 1845
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 11 Recto:
The Church of St-Jacques and Dieppe Harbour 1845
D35470
Turner Bequest CCCLX 12
Pencil, gouache and watercolour on white wove paper, 232 x 332 mm
Watermarked ‘J WHATMAN TURKEY MILL 1844’
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘12’ top left, upside down
Blind stamped with the Turner Bequest monogram towards bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCCLX 12’ top left, upside down
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This watercolour sketch, worked over a relatively detailed pencil drawing, takes in the main section of Dieppe harbour from a slight elevation near the district of Pollet. The harbour waters, shown at the point at which the dark brown quai du Carénage divides them in two, are indicated by a section of ‘reserved’ blank paper. The Church of St-Jacques rises above a tall row of terraced, harbour-side buildings while ships’ masts, crowds of people, and carriages picked out with ‘dropped-in’ patches of brown evoke the hubbub of a busy port and tourist town. Two elegant figures to the right of the page join the viewer as spectators of the scene; in this respect, like folio 12 recto (D35471; Turner Bequest CCCLX 13) the page draws the viewer into the comings and goings of leisurely holiday-making.1
For reasons set out in the Technical notes in the sketchbook Introduction, this work appears inverted in relation to the volume as foliated.
1
For the fashionable nature of Dieppe at this date, see Simonia Pakenham, Sixty Miles from England: The English at Dieppe, 1814–1914, London 1967; also, L. Vitet, Histoire de Dieppe, Paris 1844, p.333.
Verso:
Blank; except for a light patch of grey watercolour transferred from folio 12 recto opposite (D35471; Turner Bequest CCCLX 13).

John Chu
February 2014

How to cite

John Chu, ‘The Church of St-Jacques and Dieppe Harbour 1845 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, February 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-st-jacques-and-dieppe-harbour-r1173566, accessed 25 November 2024.