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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1802-18 Academician and professor > East Sussex c.1806-20 > Richmond Hill; Hastings to Margate ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner A Standing Nude Woman, Seen from Behind c.1816

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘A Standing Nude Woman, Seen from Behind’ c.1816
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 5 Recto:
A Standing Nude Woman, Seen from Behind circa 1816
D10418
Turner Bequest CXL 5
Pencil on white wove paper, 155 x 95 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in blue ink ‘5’ top right
Stamped in black ‘CXL 5’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This is one of several life studies in this sketchbook, probably made in the Royal Academy life classes; see also the verso and folios 6 and 7 (D10419–D10422) which have studies of the same figure and pose from other angles.
Turner was an Annual Visitor (instructor) in the Life Academy in various years. He served in 1813, the year that this sketchbook is watermarked, and again in 1822, 1823, 1825, 1830, 1831, 1834, 1835 and 1837. Figures in this sketchbook may have been drawn to inform The Decline of the Carthaginian Empire (Tate N00499) of 18171 given the presence of other sketches and verse (see Introduction).

David Blayney Brown
July 2011

1
Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll, The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner, revised ed. 1984, pp.100–1 no.135 (pl.137).

How to cite

David Blayney Brown, ‘A Standing Nude Woman, Seen from Behind c.1816 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, July 2011, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2012, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-a-standing-nude-woman-seen-from-behind-r1131401, accessed 25 April 2024.