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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1830-35 Annual tourist > Erotica and Improvisations c.1834-6 > Colour Studies (2) Sketchbook [Finberg ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner ?A Curtained Bed, with a Naked Man and Woman Reclining c.1834-6

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘?A Curtained Bed, with a Naked Man and Woman Reclining’ c.1834-6
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 16 Verso:
?A Curtained Bed, with a Naked Man and Woman Reclining c.1834–6
D28894
Turner Bequest CCXCI c 16
Pencil and watercolour on white wove paper, 79 x 101 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Inverted relative to the sketchbook’s foliation, the exact juxtaposition of what appear to be two naked figures (probably in the dark interior of a curtained bed) is difficult to make out, as the white spaces left by the initial washes have been articulated by a somewhat feverish flurry of pencil work. The clearest forms seem to indicate bare legs with the knees drawn up and parted, and there is an impression of a crouching or crawling figure on the left.
For a discussion of the improvisatory and often erotic nature of the watercolour studies making up most of this sketchbook, see the Introduction.
The unaccessioned, blank recto is numbered in red ink ‘16’ and stamped ‘CCXCI(c) – 16’.

Matthew Imms
May 2014

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘?A Curtained Bed, with a Naked Man and Woman Reclining c.1834–6 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, May 2014, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, September 2014, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-a-curtained-bed-with-a-naked-man-and-woman-reclining-r1148991, accessed 21 November 2024.