A Reclining Nude Woman

c.1833

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In Tate Britain

Prints and Drawings Room

View by appointment

Artist: Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Medium: Chalk on paper
Dimensions: Support: 96 x 137 mm
Collection: Tate
Acquisition: Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Reference: D33942
Turner Bequest CCCXLI 231

Catalogue entry

Ian Warrell has linked Tate D33942–D33945 (Turner Bequest CCCXLI 231, 231v, 232, 232v) as ‘Studies of a female nude on grey paper’, connecting them to similar small, divided-up sheets used in Austria in 1833. He compares the use of red and white chalks to the technique of a sequence of studies of a male nude in the Life Class (2) sketchbook of the later 1830s 1 (Tate D27482–D27513; Turner Bequest CCLXXIX b 2–33).

See also the figure studies in chalks on pages washed in grey in the Whalers sketchbook of about 1845 (Tate D35256–D35258; Turner Bequest CCCLIII 17, 18, 19), particularly D35256.

The verso is D33943, a technically similar figure drawing.

Warrell 2003, p.25.

Technical notes:

Ian Warrell has noted that the left-hand torn edge here matches the right-hand edge of D33945.1

Matthew Imms
September 2016

Ibid.

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