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 Man and Woman Embracing c.1834-6

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘?A Curtained Bed, with a Man and Woman Embracing’ c.1834-6
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 17 Verso:
?A Curtained Bed, with a Man and Woman Embracing c.1834–6
D28896
Turner Bequest CCXCI c 17
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, a man on all fours is embraced by a reclining woman, probably in the shadowy interior of a curtained bed. He is washed in with a dark tone against the white paper where the woman’s form is articulated by rough pencil work; in a space left by accident or design above the oval of her face there are loose pencil indications of an elaborately tall hairstyle or headdress.
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 ‘17’ and stamped ‘CCXCI(c) – 17’.

Matthew Imms
May 2014

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘?A Curtained Bed, with a Man and Woman Embracing 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-man-and-woman-embracing-r1148992, accessed 21 November 2024.