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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1802-18 Academician and professor > Nude Studies and Erotica c.1805-24 > Academy Auditing Sketchbook [Finberg ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner A Naked Couple Engaged in Sexual Activity c.1810

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘A Naked Couple Engaged in Sexual Activity’ c.1810
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 21 Recto:
A Naked Couple Engaged in Sexual Activity circa 1810
D18500
Turner Bequest CCX a 19
Pencil on white laid writing paper, 115 x 187 mm
Part watermark ‘pps’
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘19’ bottom right (now very faint)
Stamped in black ‘CCX(a) – 19’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
As discussed in the introduction, most of the drawings in this book are rapid figure studies, many of which are explicitly erotic; others may be similar in intent, but are difficult to make out, and may be of classical or biblical subjects. Here a reclining naked woman draws up her leg as a fragmentary figure approaching her. In relation to Ruskin’s supposed destruction of similar Turner Bequest material,1 Gerald Wilkinson noted of the present subject:
I imagine that folio 18 [sic, but referring to a reproduction of the present work] would have been a likely candidate for the flames. Perhaps it escaped because its tentative ‘nymphs and satyrs’, to use Finberg’s description, from part of a sequence of studies which Ruskin might have regarded as more ‘creative’ than the odd erotic drawing.2
1
But see Warrell 2003, pp.9–10.
2
Wilkinson 1975, p.29.
Verso:
Blank

Matthew Imms
January 2012

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘A Naked Couple Engaged in Sexual Activity c.1810 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, January 2012, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, February 2017, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-a-naked-couple-engaged-in-sexual-activity-r1184371, accessed 10 May 2024.