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

Turner turned the sketchbook sideways to make this drawing. It has been much discussed for its likely insights into Turner’s psyche, argument often focusing on the gender of the second, more shadowy figure whose arm clasps the naked girl. If, as most often supposed, it is another woman, Turner might either be venting some lesbian fantasy or recalling an encounter that he and his travelling companion, Newbey Lowson, had shared, perhaps in a brothel in Berne (where he bought the sketchbook). If it is a man, the autobiographical tone would be all the stronger, the model presumably being Lowson or Turner himself. The evidence of the clothing discarded in the foreground is inconclusive. This includes two wide-brimmed straw hats of the type worn by Swiss girls, but the problematic figure seems to rest its head on a third, decorated with a ribbon.

Verso:

Blank, save for slight offsets of red and blue-grey washes from folio 2 recto of the sketchbook (D04799). There is also some water-staining, perhaps from the 1928 Tate Gallery flood.