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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1830-35 Annual tourist > Erotica and Improvisations c.1834-6 > Colour Studies (2) Sketchbook [Finberg ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner A Curtained Bed, with Naked Figures ?Engaged in Sexual Activity c.1834-6

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘A Curtained Bed, with Naked Figures ?Engaged in Sexual Activity’ c.1834-6
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 13 Verso:
A Curtained Bed, with Naked Figures ?Engaged in Sexual Activity c.1834–6
D28888
Turner Bequest CCXCI c 13
Watercolour on white wove paper, 79 x 101 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Inverted relative to the sketchbook’s foliation, the pale torso and thigh of a figure lit from above appear to be indicated on the diagonal across the centre, while the presence of a raised knee beyond is the clearest indication of the corresponding reclining figure below as they embrace in the darkness of a curtained bed.
For a discussion of the improvisatory and often erotic nature of the watercolour studies making up most of this sketchbook, see the Introduction.
Technical notes:
The unaccessioned recto is numbered in red ink ‘13’ and stamped ‘CCXCI(c) – 13’; it is otherwise blank apart from slight watercolour offsetting from folio 12 verso (D28886).

Matthew Imms
May 2014

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘A Curtained Bed, with Naked Figures ?Engaged in Sexual Activity c.1834–6 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, May 2014, 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-a-curtained-bed-with-naked-figures-engaged-in-sexual-r1148988, accessed 23 April 2024.