A Male Nude, Half-Kneeling, Seen from Behind

c.1799–1805

Image released under Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-ND (3.0 Unported)

License this image

In Tate Britain

Prints and Drawings Room

View by appointment

Artist: Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Part of: Calais Pier Sketchbook
Medium: Chalk on paper
Dimensions: Support: 436 x 271 mm
Collection: Tate
Acquisition: Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Reference: D04910
Turner Bequest LXXXI 9

Catalogue entry

This is one of a series of academy studies from the nude model in this book, and was presumably drawn from a pose at the Royal Academy’s Life School. A male nude in a very similar attitude occurs in a study by Thomas Stothard (1755–1834) in the Royal Academy collection (RA 05/3123), and another of Stothard’s studies seems to show the same model and pose from a different viewpoint (RA 3091). Stothard was a visitor to the Schools in 1799, 1800, 1803 and 1804; see also folio 8 recto (D04916; Turner Bequest LXXXI 15).

There is a possibility that Turner referred to this drawing when developing the pose of Jason in his 1802 mythological painting of that name (Tate N00471);1 see also folios 1 recto and 4 recto (D04902, D04908; Turner Bequest LXXXI 1, 7).

Andrew Wilton
May 2013

Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll, The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner, revised ed., New Haven and London 1984, p.18 no.19, pl.15.

Read full Catalogue entry