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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1802-18 Academician and professor > Sandycombe Lodge c.1808-12 > Windmill and Lock Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Figures Engaged in Sexual Activity c.1808-11

Sorry, no image is available of this artwork
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 1 Verso:
Figures Engaged in Sexual Activity circa 1808–11
D40812
Pencil on white wove paper, 87 x 117 mm
Part watermark ‘J Wha | 180’
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This drawing is not mentioned in Finberg’s Turner Bequest Inventory,1 probably because it is so slight and indecipherable rather than on account of its apparent subject. There is a more obviously erotic sketch on folio 2 recto opposite (D07961). Faint forms on the recto of the present sheet (D07960) may also be related.

Matthew Imms
January 2012

1
See A.J. Finberg, A Complete Inventory of the Drawings of the Turner Bequest, London 1909, vol.I, p.311.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Figures Engaged in Sexual Activity c.1808–11 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, January 2012, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2012, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-figures-engaged-in-sexual-activity-r1134736, accessed 18 May 2024.