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

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

Joseph Mallord William Turner Boulogne from the North, with a Windmill c.1845

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Boulogne from the North, with a Windmill’ c.1845
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 17 Verso:
Boulogne from the North, with a Windmill 1845
D35424
Turner Bequest CCCLVIII 18v
Pencil and watercolour on white wove paper, 230 x 326 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘Pigs’ towards bottom left
Blind stamped with Turner Bequest monogram towards bottom centre
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This sketch captures a distant northerly view of Boulogne’s haute ville (literally, ‘high town’) whose high structures – the unfinished basilica and medieval bell tower – are balanced by a windmill in the middle distance.1 Delicate washes and darker calligraphic strokes in rose, lemon yellow, and ochre are combined to radiant, hazy effect. Towards the bottom left, Turner has inscribed ‘Pigs’ to record the presence of this picturesque detail.
1
Frédéric Debussche, Architecture de XIXe siècle à Boulogne-sur-Mer, Arras 2004, pp.4–13; also, Pierre Boissé (ed.), Boulogne-sur-mer: le château et la haute-ville, Pas-de-Calais, Paris c.1988.
Technical notes:
Turner worked on this sketchbook from two directions, with each sequence of drawings inverted in relation to the other. The first sequence in the present foliation appears mainly on the recto of each leaf, and the second mainly on the verso. After the volume entered the national collection John Ruskin numbered the each folio on the bottom right of each recto in a single sequence, irrespective of the side of the page upon which the drawing appeared. As a consequence, on many of the sketches in the second half of the book (including this one), Ruskin’s red ink number and the subsequent stamped Turner Bequest number appear on the other side of the leaf, and inverted in relation to the direction of the present drawing. Because slight pencil marks by Turner have subsequently been noticed on the recto in this instance (D35423; Turner Bequest CCCLVIII 18), the present work has been given the pseudo-Turner Bequest number ‘CCCLVIII 18v’.

John Chu
November 2013

How to cite

John Chu, ‘Boulogne from the North, with a Windmill 1845 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, November 2013, 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-boulogne-from-the-north-with-a-windmill-r1173523, accessed 22 November 2024.