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 (1) Sketchbook [Finberg ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner A Dark Interior or Curtained Bed, with a Figure or Figures c.1834-6

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘A Dark Interior or Curtained Bed, with a Figure or Figures’ c.1834-6
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 39 Verso:
A Dark Interior or Curtained Bed, with a Figure or Figures c.1834–6
D28841
Turner Bequest CCXCI b 39
Watercolour on white wove paper, 77 x 101 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Inverted relative to the sketchbook’s foliation, the setting appears to be a dark interior or a curtained bed, with pale shapes towards the right suggesting a figure or figures. The blue hatching at the top left may indicate the bed curtains or other hangings in the room; compare the similar effect on folio 40 recto opposite (D28843).
For a discussion of the improvisatory and often erotic nature of the watercolour studies making up most of this sketchbook, see the Introduction.
The unaccessioned recto is inscribed in red ink ‘39’ and stamped ‘CCXCI(b) – 39’, and is blank save for slight offsetting of watercolour to or from folio 38 verso opposite (itself unaccessioned, the recto being D28840).

Matthew Imms
May 2014

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘A Dark Interior or Curtained Bed, with a Figure or Figures 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-dark-interior-or-curtained-bed-with-a-figure-or-figures-r1149066, accessed 25 April 2024.