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 Figure or Figures c.1834-6

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘A Curtained Bed, ?with a Figure or Figures’ c.1834-6
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 20 Verso:
A Curtained Bed, ?with a Figure or Figures c.1834–6
D28902
Turner Bequest CCXCI c 20
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 curtained bed is indicated with what may be a figure reclining within with the head to the left; the marks at the right could indicate another figure, although these readings are open to interpretation.
For a discussion of the improvisatory and often erotic nature of the watercolour studies making up most of this sketchbook, see the Introduction.
Technical notes:
The unaccessioned recto is numbered in red ink ‘20’ and stamped ‘CCXCI(c) – 20’; it is blank apart from slight watercolour offsetting at the gutter and in general from folio 19 verso (D28900).

Matthew Imms
May 2014

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘A Curtained Bed, ?with a Figure or Figures 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-figure-or-figures-r1148995, accessed 21 November 2024.