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 Montivilliers, Normandy c.1832

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Montivilliers, Normandy’ c.1832
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Montivilliers, Normandy c.1832
D24650
Turner Bequest CCLIX 85
Gouache and watercolour with pen on blue paper, 139 x 191 mm
Blind-stamped with the Turner Bequest monogram bottom left
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Turner worked ink, gouache, and watercolour paints onto this sheet of blue paper to depict timber-framed buildings on the River Lézarde at Montivilliers. This small town is situated about seven miles north-east of the port at Le Havre, and is dominated by the Romanesque Church of St-Sauveur. Particular attention has been paid here to the recession of irregular buildings and, in the background, the looming presence of the church’s lantern tower and spire. Women fetch and carry water in the foreground while a water-wheel powers the mill on the left-hand edge of the scene. Art historian Ian Warrell has singled out a drawing in the Seine and Paris sketchbook as the basis for this composition: see Tate D24066 (Turner Bequest CCLIV 93a).1 The existence of the present colour study suggests that Turner considered the subject as an illustration for Turner’s Annual Tour: Wanderings by the Loire and Seine (1833–5; later reissued as Rivers of France) although Montivilliers did not make it into this publication in the event.2
1
Ian Warrell, Turner on the Seine, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1999, p.270.
2
W[illiam] G[eorge] Rawlinson, The Engraved Work of J.M.W. Turner, R.A., London 1908, vol.II, pp.264–76 nos.453–92.
Technical notes:
The verso of this sheet is catalogued under the entry for Tate D40076.

John Chu
August 2014

How to cite

John Chu, ‘Montivilliers, 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-montivilliers-normandy-r1173090, accessed 14 January 2025.