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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1787-1801 Student and master > History Painting c.1799-1807 > Calais Pier Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Study of a Supine Male Nude with Raised Right Leg c.1799-1800

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Study of a Supine Male Nude with Raised Right Leg’ c.1799-1800
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 13 Recto:
Study of a Supine Male Nude with Raised Right Leg c.1799–1800
D04926
Turner Bequest LXXXI 25
Black and white chalks on blue laid paper, 271 x 436 mm
Watermarks ‘1794’ and ‘VI’
Inscribed in a later hand in ink ‘No 222’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘LXXXI–25’ bottom left, descending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Turner used this horizontal pose in a figure in the foreground of his painting The Fifth Plague of Egypt, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1800 (Indianapolis Museum of Art).1 With that purpose in mind he may have used this drawing to adapt a study of the model in a similar position made apparently at a Royal Academy Life Class (Tate D00206; Turner Bequest XVIII K).
1
Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll, The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner, revised ed., New Haven and London 1984, pp.10–11 no.13, pl.10 (colour).
Technical notes:
The page is faded from exposure. The same number, ‘222’, is inscribed on folio 16 recto (D04932; Turner Bequest LXXXI 31), which was also extracted for exhibition.

Andrew Wilton
May 2013

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘Study of a Supine Male Nude with Raised Right Leg c.1799–1800 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, May 2013, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, April 2016, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-study-of-a-supine-male-nude-with-raised-right-leg-r1178130, accessed 24 November 2024.