Joseph Mallord William Turner

?A Curtained Bed, with a Figure or Figures

c.1834–6

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In Tate Britain

Prints and Drawings Room

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Artist
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Part of
Colour Studies (1) Sketchbook [Finberg CCXCI (b)]
Medium
Watercolour on paper
Dimensions
Support: 77 × 101 mm
Collection
Tate
Acquisition
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Reference
D28849
Turner Bequest CCXCI b 44

Catalogue entry

Inverted relative to the sketchbook’s foliation, within what seems to be the dark space framed by swirling bed curtains (as on many adjacent pages) there may be a figure, or figures embracing; the setting is so elemental and lightly indicated that it could also suggest a wood or cave.
For a discussion of the improvisatory and often erotic nature of the watercolour studies making up most of this sketchbook, see the Introduction.

Matthew Imms
May 2014

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