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

This colour study or ‘colour beginning’1 relates closely to a watercolour dated 1839, Tancarville on the Seine (British Museum).2 The connection was first recognised by Andrew Wilton.3 For more information about this watercolour and related studies, see the Introduction to this section.

Of the two sheets included here (for the other see Tate D25139; Turner Bequest CCLXIII 17), the other presents the most complete composition. The present sheet, on the other hand, presents a less worked version of the scene, although the key areas of land seen in the finished watercolour are suggested. The colour relationships are also hinted at, with the areas of green foliage laid out. The position of the figures seen in the foreground of the finished scene appears to be suggested in brown.

As noted in the Introduction to this section, of Turner’s earlier 1832 studies of Tancarville, one of the studies (Tate D24734; Turner Bequest CCLIX 169), which Ian Warrell has termed ‘the most self-consciously Claudean,’4 appears to have been of particular interest to Turner when developing the present colour study and its companion. It seems that Turner returned to this and other c.1832 source material when working on the later watercolour and the present studies (see introduction to this section). This and the directly connected colour study are significantly different to those dated to the earlier time of c.1832, being larger in scale and completed on white, rather than blue, paper.

Technical notes:

Although Turner does not quite use the almost dry brush technique seen on some of the other ‘colour beginnings’ (see for example, see Tate D25504; Turner Bequest CCLXIII 380), there is an interesting mixture of watercolour marks of different levels of opacity on this sheet.

Verso:

The sheet has been laid down on paper and the verso could not be checked at the time of cataloguing.