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 a Naked Figure Reclining c.1834-6

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘A Curtained Bed, with a Naked Figure Reclining’ c.1834-6
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 27 Verso:
A Curtained Bed, with a Naked Figure Reclining c.1834–6
D28916
Turner Bequest CCXCI c 27
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 mass of a reclining figure is shown within a bed with its bright curtain and blue-striped bedclothes. The sex and anatomy of the figure are difficult to make out, although the full curves hint at a female torso, perhaps with the head to the left and the hip to the right; there are several finger marks where the artist has blended or lifted the wet washes.
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, blank recto is numbered in red ink ‘27’ and stamped ‘CCXCI(c) – 27’; it bears slight watercolour offsetting from folio 26 verso (D28914).

Matthew Imms
May 2014

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘A Curtained Bed, with a Naked Figure Reclining 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-a-naked-figure-reclining-r1149002, accessed 25 April 2024.