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 > Fishing at the Weir Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner ?A Curtained Bed with a Face Looking Out c.1834-6

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘?A Curtained Bed with a Face Looking Out’ c.1834-6
Folio 6 Verso:
?A Curtained Bed with a Face Looking Out c.1834–6
D27735
Turner Bequest CCLXXXI 6a
Watercolour on white wove paper, 79 x 101 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
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 the setting seems to be a dark interior or bed with curtains, with a pale face peeping out, perhaps coyly or invitingly, near the centre.
Raphael Rosenberg has used this as an example to link this sketchbook with the erotic compositions in the Colour Studies (1) and (2) sketchbooks (Tate; Turner Bequest CCXCI b and c), placed alongside this book in the present catalogue (see the Introduction to the grouping), and the handling of the figures in Tate D28835 and D28836 (Turner Bequest CCXCI b 35, 36) in particular.1 He sees the face as having been developed out of fortuitous irregularities in the original washes which suggested the image.2

Matthew Imms
April 2014

1
Rosenberg 2007, p.327 note 24.
2
Ibid., pp.327–8 note 51.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘?A Curtained Bed with a Face Looking Out c.1834–6’, catalogue entry, April 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/a-curtained-bed-with-a-face-looking-out-r1149099, accessed 21 November 2024.