Joseph Mallord William Turner

?A Curtained Bed, with a Naked Woman Reclining on her Side

c.1834–6

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In Tate Britain

Prints and Drawings Room

View by appointment
Artist
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Part of
Colour Studies (1) Sketchbook [Finberg CCXCI (b)]
Medium
Watercolour and graphite on paper
Dimensions
Support: 77 × 101 mm
Collection
Tate
Acquisition
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Reference
D28856
Turner Bequest CCXCI b 47 a

Catalogue entry

Inverted relative to the sketchbook’s foliation, the dark space evoked by the rough washes may be the interior of a curtained bed, as on many other pages here. The pale area at the centre and left has been defined with pencil work to outline the front views of a reclining naked woman.
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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