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

As set out in the Introduction, numerous pages in the first third of this sketchbook have had rough watercolour washes applied, which have then been worked into compositions to varying degrees. Here there is little development of the dark central area which on other pages seems to indicate a dim interior or the interior space of a curtained bed. The most conspicuous feature among the nebulous shapes is a perfunctorily outlined head with dark eyes and a shadow under the nose dotted in towards the top right; the face is either tilted to one side or to be read with the page turned vertically. Raphael Rosenberg has interpreted this as a potentially erotic image,1 and sees the face as having been developed out of fortuitous irregularities in the original washes which suggested the image.2