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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1787-1801 Student and master > Royal Academy c.1789-99 > Studies from the Antique and Other ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Helmeted Head in Profile, with Other Studies ?1790-3

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Helmeted Head in Profile, with Other Studies’ ?1790-3
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Helmeted Head in Profile, with Other Studies ?1790–3
D40220
Black, red and white chalks and stump on dark buff paper, 337 x 269 mm
Stamped in brown ink with Turner Bequest monogram bottom centre
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Various sketches occur on this page: as well as the helmeted head, a study of a boy drawing, in black and red chalks; a faint black chalk outline of the Apollo Belvedere (for which see Tate D00056–D00058; Turner Bequest V C–E); and a slight red chalk sketch of a face. The boy drawing is presumably a fellow student of Turner’s in the Plaister Academy. Ann Chumbley and Ian Warrell suggest that its presence here signifies Turner’s ‘frustration with merely copying casts’ and heralds his transfer to the Life Class, but the drawing seems to belong to about 1790–1 rather than to the perhaps later date of the helmeted head.
The recto of this sheet is D00070 (Turner Bequest V R).
Technical notes:
The top left corner has been torn away.

Andrew Wilton
April 2012

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘Helmeted Head in Profile, with Other Studies ?1790–3 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-helmeted-head-in-profile-with-other-studies-r1140249, accessed 18 April 2024.