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 Dark Interior or Curtained Bed, with Figures c.1834-6

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘?A Dark Interior or Curtained Bed, with Figures’ c.1834-6
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 21 Verso:
?A Dark Interior or Curtained Bed, with Figures c.1834–6
D28904
Turner Bequest CCXCI c 21
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 extremely loose washes here may be interpreted as showing a curtained bed, as so often in this book, with a reserved area within waiting to be developed as a figure or figures; the same may apply to the darker area towards the right. The bed’s setting is articulated by the outline of a doorway or window beyond.
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, blank recto is numbered in red ink ‘21’ and stamped ‘CCXCI(c) – 21’; it bears very slight watercolour offsetting from folio 20 verso (D28902). There is some offsetting from the present page at the gutter of the unaccessioned recto of folio 22 opposite (its verso being D28906).

Matthew Imms
May 2014

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘?A Dark Interior or Curtained Bed, with 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-dark-interior-or-curtained-bed-with-figures-r1148996, accessed 21 November 2024.