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

It has been proposed that the sequence between folios 1 recto and 12 verso (D28874–D28886) ‘form a series of studies narrating an erotic adventure’ as distinct from other ‘studies on similar themes throughout the book’.1 There may be a case for extending or shortening this range slightly – Raphael Rosenberg has suggested that it ends at folio 11 recto (D28885),2 after the throes of passion – but in principle this seems likely, as some of the scenes are more conventionally pictorial and carefully defined by drawing in watercolour with the brush (albeit sometimes sexually explicit) than the often rather rough, undeveloped washes later on. Jack Lindsay has imagined them as ‘the record of an episode at an inn (on the Rhine, perhaps). A set of delightful little paintings show a servant-girl undressing, a couple tumbling in the large bed, compositions derived from their embraces, and what are almost pure effects of colour and light derived from the experience.’3

Whatever Turner’s overall idea may have been, in this case the figures emerge from a flurry of pencil alone, perhaps in a spontaneous addition to the sequence when Turner was adding pencil detail to some of the adjacent wash studies; the exact subject is unclear, but appears to be a woman wearing or removing a long dress, with another figure beside her, perhaps the male companion seen elsewhere. The slight marks to the right probably indicate the curtains of a bed.

For a discussion of the improvisatory and often erotic nature of the watercolour studies making up most of this sketchbook, see the Introduction.

Technical notes:

There is some slight offsetting of watercolour from folio 7 recto opposite (D28881).