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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > Normandy ?1829

Tour of Normandy ?1829

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This section comprises a single sketchbook generally agreed to have been used by Turner in Normandy in 1829. The dating of the tour is discussed in this catalogue’s Introduction section for the sketchbook. Turner’s frequent and regular travels, throughout Europe, usually involved leaving London each summer after the closing of the Royal Academy exhibition, and returning in early autumn. Undertaken with the aim of collecting visual impressions and topographical details for use in his work, he sketched prolifically on these trips. Turner visited France on many occasions, commencing in 1802, with further tours in 1821 (Paris, Seine), 1824 (northern France, Dieppe), 1826 (northern France; Normandy, Brittany, Loire), 1832 (Paris, Seine), 1837 (Paris, Versailles) and 1845 (northern French coast), as discussed elsewhere in this catalogue. This particular tour, of Normandy, involved in essence travelling consistently eastwards from the Seine estuary towards Paris. The tour commences in the town of Harfleur, and passes ...
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Tancarville and Lillebonne Sketchbook ?1829
D23699–D23885; D41080–D41081
Turner Bequest CCLIII 1–94a
This section comprises a single sketchbook generally agreed to have been used by Turner in Normandy in 1829. The dating of the tour is discussed in this catalogue’s Introduction section for the sketchbook.
Turner’s frequent and regular travels, throughout Europe, usually involved leaving London each summer after the closing of the Royal Academy exhibition, and returning in early autumn. Undertaken with the aim of collecting visual impressions and topographical details for use in his work, he sketched prolifically on these trips. Turner visited France on many occasions, commencing in 1802, with further tours in 1821 (Paris, Seine), 1824 (northern France, Dieppe), 1826 (northern France; Normandy, Brittany, Loire), 1832 (Paris, Seine), 1837 (Paris, Versailles) and 1845 (northern French coast),1 as discussed elsewhere in this catalogue.
This particular tour, of Normandy, involved in essence travelling consistently eastwards from the Seine estuary towards Paris. The tour commences in the town of Harfleur, and passes through Le Havre, Graville, Honfleur, Tancarville, Lillebonne, Quillebeuf, Villequier, Mailleraye, Jumièges, Duclair, Canteleu, Rouen, Igoville and Pont de l’Arche to Poissy (located approximately 19 miles, or 30 kilometres, distance westwards of Paris).
Turner undertook this tour to collect material for his ‘Rivers of France’ (part of his ‘Rivers of Europe’) project.2 This project led to the three very well-received3 volumes consisting of engraved plates after Turner with text by the writer Leitch Ritchie, entitled Turner’s Annual Tour – Wanderings by the Loire (1833), Turner’s Annual Tour – Wanderings by the Seine (1834), and Turner’s Annual Tour – Wanderings by the Seine (1835), later collected into one volume, The Rivers of France. In his catalogue entries for this sketchbook the art historian A.J. Finberg often refers to engravings in the 1834 Wanderings by the Seine volume.
1
Cecilia Powell, ‘Travel’, in Joll, Butlin and Herrmann 2001, p.341.
2
Ian Warrell, ‘Seine’, in ibid., p.289; Wilton 1987, p.204;Wilton 2006, p.238.
3
Ian Warrell, ‘Turner’s Annual Tour’, in Joll, Butlin and Herrmann 2001, p.349.

Caroline South
May 2017

Artworks in this grouping

How to cite

Caroline South, ‘Tour of Normandy ?1829’, May 2017, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, November 2019, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/tour-of-normandy-r1195602, accessed 21 November 2024.