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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1787-1801 Student and master > History Painting c.1799-1807 > Calais Pier Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner A Group of Putti c.1802-3

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘A Group of Putti’ c.1802-3
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 32 Recto:
A Group of Putti c.1802–3
D04963
Turner Bequest LXXXI 61
Black chalk on blue laid paper, 271 x 436 mm
Watermarks ‘1794’ and Strasburg lily
Stamped in black ‘LXXXI–61’ top right, ascending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
With the page turned horizontally, this tightly knit group of cherubs or putti may be read in isolation, but they may form part of the design of the ‘Holy Family’ composition that Turner was working out on folios 31 verso and 33 recto (D04962, D04965; Turner Bequest LXXXI 60, 63). The work from which he took his inspiration on his visit to the Louvre in Paris in 1802, Titian’s Death of St Peter Martyr, makes distinctive use of tall trees in which putti hover above the saint’s head.
Technical notes:
There is some black chalk offset from folio 31 verso opposite (D04962; Turner Bequest LXXXI 60).

Andrew Wilton
May 2013

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘A Group of Putti c.1802–3 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, May 2013, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, April 2016, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-a-group-of-putti-r1178167, accessed 25 April 2024.