J.M.W. Turner
Joseph Mallord William Turner Petworth House: A Bedroom with a Large Four-Poster Bed with Dark Green Curtains 1827
Joseph Mallord William Turner,
Petworth House: A Bedroom with a Large Four-Poster Bed with Dark Green Curtains
1827
Petworth House: A Bedroom with a Large Four–Poster Bed with Dark Green Curtains 1827
D22679
Turner Bequest CCXLIV 17
Turner Bequest CCXLIV 17
Gouache and watercolour on blue wove paper, 138 x 189 mm
Stamped in black ‘CCXLIV 17’ bottom right
Blind stamped with Turner Bequest monogram bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCXLIV 17’ bottom right
Blind stamped with Turner Bequest monogram bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Exhibition history
1962
English Drawings and Water Colors from British Collections, National Gallery of Art, Washington, February–April 1962, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, April–June 1962 (86).
1938
[Display of Watercolours], National Gallery, London, December 1938–September 1939 (no catalogue, as ‘Bedroom at Petworth’).
1963
Turner Watercolors from The British Museum: A Loan Exhibition Circulated by the Smithsonian Institution, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, September–October 1963, Museum of Fine Arts of Houston, Texas, November, M.H. de Young Memorial Museum, San Francisco, December 1963–January 1964, Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio, January–March, William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art, Kansas City, Missouri, March–April, Brooklyn Museum, New York, May, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, June–July 1964 (28).
1965
[Display of watercolours from the Turner Bequest], Tate Gallery, London, ? – [?]March 1965 (no catalogue, as ‘Room at Petworth’).
1970
Turner: Watercolours Lent by the British Museum, Musée Provisoire d’Art Moderne, Brussels, November 1970–January 1971 (40).
1972
Das Aquarell 1400–1950, Haus der Kunst, Munich, October 1972–January 1973 (150).
1974
Turner 1775–1851, Royal Academy, London, November 1974–March 1975 (344).
1977
Turner Watercolors: An Exhibition of Works Loaned by The Trustees of the British Museum, International Exhibitions Foundation tour, Cleveland Museum of Art, September–November 1977, Detroit Institute of Arts, December 1977–February 1978, Philadelphia Museum of Art, March–April 1978 (26).
2002
Turner at Petworth, Petworth House, Petworth, July–September 2002 (67).
References
1909
A.J. Finberg, A Complete Inventory of the Drawings of the Turner Bequest, London 1909, vol.II, p.744, CCXLIV 17, as ‘Room at Petworth’.
1939
Camille Mauclair, Turner, trans. Eveline Byam Shaw, London and Toronto 1939, p.157 reproduced.
1960
Sir John Rothenstein, Turner (1775–1851), London 1960, p.16 reproduced.
1962
Jonathan Mayne and John Woodward, An Exhibition of English Drawings and Water Colors from British Collections, Sponsored by the English-Speaking Unions of the United States and the British Commonwealth, exhibition catalogue, National Gallery of Art, Washington 1962, no.86 as ‘A Room at Petworth’.
1963
Edward Croft-Murray, Turner Watercolors from The British Museum: A Loan Exhibition Circulated by the Smithsonian Institution, exhibition catalogue, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC 1963, no.28 as ‘Petworth, the Green-Curtained Bed’.
1967
Giuseppe Gatt, Turner, Florence 1967, p.17, 30, pl.39.
1968
Giuseppe Gatt, Turner: The Life and Work of the Artist Illustrated with 80 Colour Plates, trans. Pearl Sanders and Caroline Beamish, London 1968, pp.19, 32, pl.39.
1970
Luke Herrmann, Turner: Watercolours Lent by the British Museum, exhibition catalogue, Musée Provisoire d’Art Moderne, Brussels 1970, no.40, pp.9, 49 reproduced.
1972
Walter Koschatzky, Herbert Pée, Dieter Kuhrmann and others, Das Aquarell 1400–1950, exhibition catalogue, Haus der Kunst, Munich 1972, no.150, p.107.
1974
Martin Butlin, Andrew Wilton and John Gage, Turner 1775–1851, exhibition catalogue, Royal Academy, London 1974, p.111 as ‘Petworth: A Bedroom with a Large Four-Poster Bed’.
1975
Gerald Wilkinson, Turner’s Colour Sketches 182–34, London 1975, p.54 reproduced.
1977
Andrew Wilton, Turner Watercolors: An Exhibition of Works Loaned by The Trustees of the British Museum, exhibition catalogue, Cleveland Museum of Art 1977, no.26 reproduced as ‘Petworth: A Bedroom with a Large Four-Poster Bed’.
1983
Patrick Youngblood, ‘Three Mis-Identified Works by J.M.W. Turner’, Burlington Magazine, vol.125, October 1983, pp.615, 616, 618, 619.
1987
Andrew Wilton, Turner Watercolours in the Clore Gallery, London 1987, p.[107] pl.46.
1989
Martin Butlin, Mollie Luther and Ian Warrell, Turner at Petworth: Painter and Patron, London 1989, pp. 146, 147, 203 pl.53.
1990
Martin Butlin, Mollie Luther and Ian Warrell, Turner: Les Années Egremont: Chefs d’oeuvre inédits, trans. Tamara Préaud, Paris 1990, pl.53.
2002
Christopher Rowell, Ian Warrell and David Blayney Brown, Turner at Petworth, exhibition catalogue, Petworth House, Petworth 2002, pp.164, 166 fig.157, 169, 195 under no.67.
This is one of a large group of separate studies, most of which were made in gouache and watercolour on blue paper, associated with a visit to Petworth House in West Sussex, the home of the third Earl of Egremont. For more information, see the Introduction to this section.
Turner made numerous studies of the bedrooms at Petworth during his 1827 visit; for more information and a list see the entry for Tate D22677 (Turner Bequest CCXLIV 15). While the present composition has previously been linked to Petworth’s state bed,1 which Turner portrayed in D22677, Christopher Rowell has since convincingly argued that it shows neither the state bed nor one of three recorded as supplied by Chippendale in 1779.2 As he noted, the bed seen here, hung with plain green curtains, has a distinctive cornice and a canopy surmounted by an Earl’s coronet.3 He surmises that as only one of the bedrooms containing a green bed also had what was listed as an ‘Indian cabinet’ in the 1837 inventory, this room is probably the one off the first landing of the Oak Staircase, on the lower-ceilinged mezzanine level of the house.4
This interior scene reveals a more detailed approach than most of the Petworth studies and is somewhat reminiscent of Turner’s more formal Farnley Hall interiors of the previous decade, such as his gouache study of an oak panelled hall (private collection5). Also significant is the presence of an apparently nude figure on the bed; for more information about the intimate nature of some of the Petworth bedroom studies, see the entry for D22677.
Verso:
Blank, save for inscriptions: inscribed in pencil ‘7 | l’ near centre; stamped in black with Turner Bequest monogram and ‘CCXLIV 17’ bottom left.
Elizabeth Jacklin
February 2019
How to cite
Elizabeth Jacklin, ‘Petworth House: A Bedroom with a Large Four–Poster Bed with Dark Green Curtains 1827’, catalogue entry, February 2019, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, November 2024, https://www