Joseph Mallord William Turner Tancarville, with the Town of Quillebeuf in the Distance ('Back View') c.1832
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Tancarville, with the Town of Quillebeuf in the Distance (‘Back View’) c.1832
D24695
Turner Bequest CCLIX 130
Turner Bequest CCLIX 130
Gouache and watercolour on blue paper, 140 x 191 mm
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCLIX – 130’ bottom right
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCLIX – 130’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Exhibition history
1904
National Gallery, London, various dates to at least 1904 (154, as ‘Tancarville and Quilleboeuf’).
1995
Peindre le ciel: De Turner à Monet, Musée-Promenade, Marly-le-Roi / Louvecienes, April–July 1995.
1964
Loan of Turner Watercolours from the British Museum, Graves Art Gallery, Sheffield, December 1964–January 1965, University of Nottingham Art Gallery January–March.
1999
Turner on the Seine, Tate Gallery, London, June–October 1999, Pavillon des Arts, Paris, October 1999–January 2000, Musée Malraux, Le Havre, March–June (121).
References
1833
Atlas, 15 December 1833, p.804.
1834
Arnold Magazine of the Fine Arts, January 1834, p.269.
1904
E.T. Cook and Alexander Wedderburn eds., Library Edition: The Works of John Ruskin: Volume XIII: Turner: The Harbours of England; Catalogues and Notes, London 1904, pp.387, 615 no.154, as ‘Tancarville and Quilleboeuf’.
1909
A.J. Finberg, A Complete Inventory of the Drawings of the Turner Bequest, London 1909, vol.II, p.796, CCLIX 130, as ‘Tancarville and Quilleboeuf’.
1913
W[illiam] G[eorge] Rawlinson, The Engraved Work of J.M.W. Turner, R.A., vol.II, London 1913, p.266 under no.459.
1975
Andrew Wilton, Turner in the British Museum: Drawings and Watercolours, exhibition catalogue, Department of Prints and Drawings, British Museum, London 1975, p.150 under no.264.
1977
Nicholas J. Alfrey, ‘Turner and the French Rivers’, unpublished MA Report, Courtauld Institute, University of London 1977, pp.48, 84, note 3.
1979
Andrew Wilton, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work, Fribourg 1979, p.413 no.957, reproduced, as ‘Tancarville, with the town of Quilleboeuf’.
1981
Maurice Guillaud, Nicholas Alfrey, Andrew Wilton and others, Turner en France: aquarelles, peintures, dessins, gravures, carnets de croquis / Turner in France: Watercolours, Paintings, Drawings, Engravings, Sketchbooks, exhibition catalogue, Centre Culturel du Marais, Paris 1981, no.79, p.344, fig.715 as ‘c.1830’.
1983
Turner and the Human Figure: Watercolours from the Turner Bequest, Loaned by the British Museum, Tate Gallery, London, December 1983–July 1984.
1990
Luke Herrmann, Turner Prints: The Engraved Work of J.M.W. Turner, Oxford 1990, p.172.
1995
Christine Kayser, David Brown, Richard Hearn and others, Peindre le ciel: De Turner à Monet, exhibition catalogue, Musée-Promenade, Marly-le-Roi / Louvecienes 1995, pp.24, 38 fig.16.
1995
Judy Egerton, Martin Wyld and Ashok Roy, Making & Meaning: Turner: The Fighting Temeraire, exhibition catalogue, National Gallery, London 1995, pp.61, 127 note 68.
1995
Ian Warrell, Through Switzerland with Turner: Ruskin’s First Selection from the Turner Bequest, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1995, p.148 under nos.67–83.
1999
Ian Warrell, Turner on the Seine, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1999, pp.38, 69, 70, 80, 130–31, 132 fig.100, 136, 137, 257 note 27, 274 no.121.
2007
Colour and Line: Turner’s Experiments [second hang], Tate Britain, London, November 2007–October 2008.
Engraved:
By Robert Brandard in 1833, published in 1834.
By Robert Brandard in 1833, published in 1834.
Turner has worked watercolour and gouache to create this shimmering scene of Tancarville castle in northern France, looking over the sweeping meanders of the river Seine twisting away into the distance. A gleaming sun illuminates the view, shining on the water, only a sandbank at centre breaking its reflected sheen. With white gouache Turner picks out the glow of cliffs at lower left, and further back, the castle’s twin towers and wall rambling away to the right, as well as the slender tree trunks in the far-left mid-ground, immediately above a group of figures. The light also scintillates through the trees at bottom right.
Art historian Andrew Wilton states that the watercolour is based on a sketch (Tate D23789; Turner Bequest CCLIII 46a) in Turner’s Tancarville and Lillebonne sketchbook,1 believed to date from 1829, yet the viewpoint in the sketch is rather different and seems to show the opposite end (the front view) of the castle. Art historian Ian Warrell points to a different page (D23804; CCLIII 54) as a preliminary sketch.2
An engraving was made of the watercolour by Robert Brandard in 1833, as Chateau de Tancarville, with the Town of Quilleboeuf (Tate impressions T04701, T05598 and T06227) for the volume Wanderings by the Seine of 18343 (titled ‘Tancarville (Back View)’ in the ‘List of Engravings’). Turner’s evocation of light trailing across the left of the castle is transposed into engraving with particular skill. It also gives greater emphasis to the tower on the top of the hill at far right.
Verso:
Previous records note ‘inscribed in gouache ‘5/7 Tankerville Castle and Quileboeuf’; however at the time of writing the back was covered with a closed mount and simply marked ‘No image on the back.’
Caroline South
November 2017
How to cite
Caroline South, ‘Tancarville, with the Town of Quillebeuf in the Distance (‘Back View’) c.1832 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, November 2017, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, November 2019, https://www