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 Lighthouse at Dieppe Harbour 1845

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Lighthouse at Dieppe Harbour’ 1845
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 3 Recto:
The Lighthouse at Dieppe Harbour 1845
D35462
Turner Bequest CCCLX 4
Watercolour on white wove paper, 232 x 332 mm
Watermarked ‘J WHATMAN TURKEY MILL 1844’
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘4’ top left, upside down
Blind stamped with Turner Bequest monogram towards bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCCLX 4’ top left, upside down
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This brown and ochre watercolour sketch, achieved without an underlying pencil drawing, depicts the view from the banks of Dieppe’s port channel up the western jetty to the lighthouse, and thence out to sea.1 The long eastern jetty with its close rows of piers extends to the centre of the page from the right.
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 history of Dieppe’s harbour infrastructure, see Jacques Bialek, Évolution du Port de Dieppe du XVIIe Siècle à nos Jours, Dieppe 1996.
Verso:
Blank; except for small spots of brown watercolour transferred from folio 4 recto opposite (D35463; Turner Bequest CCCLX 5).

John Chu
February 2014

How to cite

John Chu, ‘The Lighthouse at 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-lighthouse-at-dieppe-harbour-r1173558, accessed 21 November 2024.