Joseph Mallord William Turner A Sketch Copy of Rubens's Portrait of ?Susanna Lunden ('Le Chapeau de Paille'); a Stooping Man c.1823-4
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 44 Recto:
A Sketch Copy of Rubens’s Portrait of ?Susanna Lunden (‘Le Chapeau de Paille’); a Stooping Man c.1823–4
D17911
Turner Bequest CCV 44
Turner Bequest CCV 44
Pencil on white wove paper, 162 x 98 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘Red sleeves’ above figure top centre, and ‘Black’, ‘Blue’, ‘and White Sky | [?no] Clouds’, ‘Yellow Ground | Panel’, ‘Black’, ‘Lake | Sleeves’, and ‘Grey’ at or beside relevant points of Rubens sketch towards bottom
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘44’ top right, ascending vertically
Stamped in black ‘CCV – 44’ top right, ascending vertically
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘Red sleeves’ above figure top centre, and ‘Black’, ‘Blue’, ‘and White Sky | [?no] Clouds’, ‘Yellow Ground | Panel’, ‘Black’, ‘Lake | Sleeves’, and ‘Grey’ at or beside relevant points of Rubens sketch towards bottom
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘44’ top right, ascending vertically
Stamped in black ‘CCV – 44’ top right, ascending vertically
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
References
1909
A.J. Finberg, A Complete Inventory of the Drawings of the Turner Bequest, London 1909, vol.I, p.623, CCV 44, as ‘Figure of a man stooping; also sketch of Rubens’s “Chapeau de Paille” (now No. 852, N.G.), with notes of colours of various parts,–“Lake Sleeves,” “Black,” “Grey,” “Yellow Panel,” “Blue Ground and White Sky. No Clouds.”’.
1961
Alexander J. Finberg, The Life of J.M.W. Turner, R.A. Second Edition, Revised, with a Supplement, by Hilda F. Finberg, revised ed., Oxford 1961, p.281.
1969
John Gage, Colour in Turner: Poetry and Truth, London 1969, p.239 note 42.
1974
Martin Butlin, Andrew Wilton and John Gage, Turner 1775–1851, exhibition catalogue, Royal Academy, London 1974, p.97 under no.261.
1983
John Gage, Jerrold Ziff, Nicholas Alfrey and others, J.M.W. Turner, à l’occasion du cinquantième anniversaire du British Council, exhibition catalogue, Galeries nationales du Grand Palais, Paris 1983, p.313.
1987
John Gage, J.M.W. Turner: ‘A Wonderful Range of Mind’, New Haven and London 1987, p.239.
1987
Andrew Wilton, Turner in his Time, London 1987, p.165, as March–April 1823.
1991
Ian Warrell, Turner: The Fourth Decade: Watercolours 1820–1830, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1991, p.41 under no.30.
1992
Joyce H. Townsend, ‘Turner’s Writings on Chemistry and Artists’ Materials’, Turner Society News, no.62, December 1992, p.9.
2006
Andrew Wilton, Turner in his Time, revised ed., London 2006, p.235, as March–April 1823.
2009
Ian Warrell, ‘“Stolen hints from celebrated pictures”: Turner as Copyist, Collector and Consumer of Old Master Paintings’ in David Solkin (ed.), Turner and the Masters, exhibition catalogue, Tate Britain, London 2009, pp.54, 230 note 3.
With the page turned vertically, at the top is a swift study of a stooping man, perhaps a sailor or docker whose ‘red sleeves’ caught Turner’s attention in the vicinity of Old London Bridge, the focus of many sketches in this book; see the Introduction.
The bridge studies appear to date from 1824, and the man was probably preceded on this page by the more elaborate drawing below, which also includes extensive colour notes.1 As Finberg recognised, it shows the painting known as Le Chapeau de Paille (the straw hat) of about 1622–5, by Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640),2 now in the National Gallery, London. The hat is not straw; perhaps owing to an English misunderstanding, ‘paille’ may have been a mistake for ‘poil’, meaning felt. The sitter is probably Rubens’s sister-in-law, Susanna Lunden, née Fourment.3 Turner presumably copied it when it was shown in London from March to April or June 1823,4 at George Stanley’s Rooms in Bond Street; it was subsequently acquired by the future Prime Minister, (Sir) Robert Peel.5
On folio 1 recto (D17834) is Turner’s sketch of Benjamin Robert Haydon’s large painting of The Raising of Lazarus, also exhibited in London in the spring of 1823.
Matthew Imms
December 2014
See Fred Bachrach, ‘Rubens, Peter Paul (1577–1640)’ in Evelyn Joll, Martin Butlin and Luke Herrmann (eds.), The Oxford Companion to J.M.W. Turner, Oxford 2001, p.273.
See the online entry at The National Gallery, accessed 9 December 2014, http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/peter-paul-rubens-portrait-of-susanna-lunden-le-chapeau-de-paille .
See Finberg 1961, p.281, Butlin, Wilton and Gage 1974, p.97, ‘Biographie’ for 1823 in Gage, Ziff, Alfrey and others 1983, p.313, Gage 1987, p.239 (calling Turner’s sketch ‘surreptitious’) and Wilton 1987, p.235, all limiting the display to March and April 1823.
See Warrell 1991, p.41, giving the later closing date, and see also Warrell 2009, pp.54, 230 note 3; the picture was recalled as being on display for ‘four months’ from March 1823 by its then owner, the art dealer John Smith, in his A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works Of The Most Eminent Dutch, Flemish and French Painters, vol. II, London 1830, p.230.
How to cite
Matthew Imms, ‘A Sketch Copy of Rubens’s Portrait of ?Susanna Lunden (‘Le Chapeau de Paille’); a Stooping Man c.1823–4 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, December 2014, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, April 2015, https://www