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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner

Joseph Mallord William Turner The Head of a Bearded Man ?1797

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Head of a Bearded Man’ ?1797
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
The Head of a Bearded Man ?1797
D41450
Turner Bequest CCCLXXIX 3 v
Pencil on white wove paper, 215 x 156 mm
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Not mentioned in Finberg’s 1909 Turner Bequest catalogue,1 this is presumably a head of Christ, and apparently related to the more developed study catalogued here as Tate D00722 (Turner Bequest XXIX Q). There is also a pothook in pencil, together with some paint smears.
The recto is D36627 (Turner Bequest CCCLXXIX 3).
1
See A.J. Finberg, A Complete Inventory of the Drawings of the Turner Bequest, London 1909, vol.II, p.1242.
Technical notes:
The sheet has been folded approximately 35 mm from the bottom edge.

Andrew Wilton
April 2012

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘The Head of a Bearded Man ?1797 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, April 2012, 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-the-head-of-a-bearded-man-r1140080, accessed 14 July 2025.