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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > Second Italian Tour 1828-9 > Lyons to Marseilles Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner The Old Port at Marseille, with the Quai de Rive Neuve and the ?Saint-Ferréol les Augustins Church 1828

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Old Port at Marseille, with the Quai de Rive Neuve and the ?Saint-Ferréol les Augustins Church’ 1828
Folio 63 Recto:
The Old Port at Marseille, with the Quai de Rive Neuve and the ?Saint-Ferréol les Augustins Church 1828
D21112
Turner Bequest CCXXX 62
Pencil on cream lined wove paper, 145 x 111 mm
Inscribed in blue ink by John Ruskin ‘62’ bottom left, upside down, and ‘4’ top left, upside down
Stamped in black ‘CCXXX 62’ bottom left, descending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This page contains two swift studies of the old port in Marseille, executed with the sketchbook turned upside down. The upper view, dense with vertical and horizontal lines, depicts moored boats by the Quai de Rive Neuve on the south side of the port. The silhouetted forms in the distance are the Saint-Laurent church to the right; the Tour du Roi René in the middle; and the Tour du Fanal to the left.
The geographer and Turner researcher Roland Courtot has tentatively proposed the Saint-Ferréol les Augustins church, situated on the Quai des Belges overlooking the port, as the subject of the lower sketch. Its current façade was added during the late nineteenth century, many decades after Turner’s visit. The quayside buildings and boat sails surrounding the church are loosely defined.
For a general commentary on Turner’s visit to Marseille and a list of comparable works in the sketchbook, see under folio 53 recto (D21092; Turner Bequest CCXXX 52).

Hannah Kaspar
March 2024

How to cite

Hannah Kaspar, ‘The Old Port at Marseille, with the Quai de Rive Neuve and the ?Saint-Ferréol les Augustins Church 1828’, catalogue entry, March 2024, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, February 2025, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/the-old-port-at-marseille-with-the-quai-de-rive-neuve-and-the-saint-ferreol-les-augustins-r1209772, accessed 25 April 2025.