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

The page contains four separate sketches, each drawn horizontally, the bottom two with the page turned upside down. Finberg noted this page simply as ‘Houses on quay, &c.’;1 however, the location of Le Havre has been confirmed.2 The right-hand part of the uppermost sketch depicts a rounded building whose shape indicates it is the Tower of François I (for further information on the tower, see under folio 7 verso; D23712). In this sketch, Turner concentrates not on the tower but on shapes of the buildings to the left of it. Of this group of buildings, the structure on the right seems to be a lighthouse, and at centre there appears to be an arched entrance within a wall or bastion.

The second sketch is the most detailed, depicting a busy quayside scene with buildings on the upper right, ships indicated by their masts, and a tower on the left topped with an onion-shaped dome. The central curved lines may indicate a bridge. The circular shapes at bottom right of this sketch are likely to indicate the wheels of a cart. The lines to the left of the wheels may depict a person. The objects in the foreground on the right appear to be pails, and some text appears beneath them which Finberg noted as reading ‘Dark Pails [and] Canvas Covers?’.3 The reading given here follows Finberg’s manuscript annotation to his 1909 Inventory, which he ascribes to ‘JPH’ (indicating the artist and collector John Postle Heseltine, 1843–1929). Turner therefore seems to have had a particular interest in recording the appearance of these pails.

The third and fourth sketches (drawn with the page turned upside down) both record the outline of buildings. The rounded and crenellated shape of the Tower of François I at Le Havre is indicated to the left of the third sketch. The fourth sketch seems to indicate a bastion over the water (as depicted in an engraving of the tower after M.G. Brabin4).

Art historian Ian Warrell states5 that this page relates to Turner’s later watercolour, The Quayside and Tower of François I at Le Havre, Normandy, c.1832 (D24648, Turner Bequest CCLIX 83). He refers presumably to the first, third and fourth sketches in particular, in which Turner records the shapes of the rounded tower and rectangular buildings, as also depicted in the watercolour.

This page is the first in a series which follow in the sketchbook (folios 8 recto–10 recto; D23713–D23717) recording the buildings on the quayside at Le Havre. With each page the buildings diminish in size and more of the coastline is depicted which indicate Turner gradually moving away from Le Havre and the north bank of the Seine estuary on which it is located, and across the water to the south bank of the Seine.