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 Curtained Bed, with a Figure or Figures c.1834-6

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘A Curtained Bed, with a Figure or Figures’ c.1834-6
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 43 Verso:
A Curtained Bed, with a Figure or Figures c.1834–6
D28847
Turner Bequest CCXCI b 43
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, within the dark space framed by the curtains of a bed there appears to be a pale figure, possibly with a companion.
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, blank recto is inscribed in red ink ‘43’ and stamped ‘CCXCI(b) – 43’.

Matthew Imms
May 2014

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘A 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-curtained-bed-with-a-figure-or-figures-r1149070, accessed 19 April 2024.