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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1802-18 Academician and professor > Liber Studiorum notes c.1807-19 > Aesacus and Hesperie Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner ?Continental Figures c.1817-19

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘?Continental Figures’ c.1817-19
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 37 Recto:
?Continental Figures c.1817–19
D13807
Turner Bequest CLXIX 37
Pencil on white wove paper, 87 x 119 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘37’ bottom right (faint and smudged)
Stamped in black ‘CLXIX – 37’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
There are two small costume studies at the top left and a larger figure seen from behind at the centre. The following pencil notes appear below the first two and then running across the third:
       CC [...] 
[...] C [?S...] 
   [...] apron C [?Boy]  
     [...] B W
     [...] cap with red band and tuft 
The words in the first line and ‘C [?Boy]’ are larger than the rest and may be unrelated, perhaps having been written first. Beside the largest figure is a further inscription: ‘yellow stock[?ing]’. The woman in the bonnet and the larger figure seen from the back in what may be official or legal robes, have a Continental air; as discussed in the sketchbook’s Introduction, it is possible that they relate to Turner’s 1817 visit to Belgium, Germany and Holland.
At the right-hand (outer) edge, written with the page turned vertically, is a further pencil note, presumably noting the sizes in inches of works in hand:
3 [?drawings]   7½ by 11 
1        6½    9½ 

Matthew Imms
September 2013

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘?Continental Figures c.1817–19 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, September 2013, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, September 2014, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-continental-figures-r1147530, accessed 25 April 2024.