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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8

Joseph Mallord William Turner A Dentist's Shop: Study for 'The Unpaid Bill, or the Dentist Reproving his Son's Prodigality' c.1807-8

Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 78 Verso:
A Dentist’s Shop: Study for ‘The Unpaid Bill, or the Dentist Reproving his Son’s Prodigality’ circa 1807–8
D06489
Turner Bequest XCIX 74a
Pencil on off-white wove paper, 115 x 190 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Drawn with the sketchbook inverted. For The Unpaid Bill, or the Dentist Reproving his Son’s Prodigality (collection of the Schindler Family)1 and related drawings in this sketchbook see comment to folio 77 recto (D06486; Turner Bequest XCIX 73). Here, Turner has sketched an idea for the dentist’s premises with some figures, the seated dentist himself being the most recognisable. The drawing is now very faint and an inscription lower right of centre cannot be read.

David Blayney Brown
March 2009

1
Butlin and Joll 1984, pp.61–2 no.81 (pl.91).

How to cite

David Blayney Brown, ‘A Dentist’s Shop: Study for ‘The Unpaid Bill, or the Dentist Reproving his Son’s Prodigality’ c.1807–8 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, March 2009, 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-dentists-shop-study-for-the-unpaid-bill-or-the-dentist-r1130685, accessed 19 September 2024.