Joseph Mallord William Turner

Study of the Vatican Meleager

?1792

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In Tate Britain

Prints and Drawings Room

View by appointment
Artist
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Part of
Studies from the Antique and Other Sculpture
Medium
Chalk and watercolour on paper
Dimensions
Support: 307 mm
support: 354 x 307 mm
Collection
Tate
Acquisition
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Reference
D00061
Turner Bequest V H

Technique and condition

This sheet is a white wove paper made using a double-faced mould. There is no watermark but Bower believes the maker is probably Whatman. The sheet has been hot pressed and very heavily sized.1 The bottom and top edges have been very unevenly cut and there is a considerable amount of surface dirt on both the recto and verso. In places the chalk has been abraded and some has been lost.
This is an early drawing in black chalk completed by Turner when he was a teenaged student at the Royal Academy. The drawing is tentative and has none of the fluidity of later works.

Helen Evans
August 2009

Revised by Joyce Townsend
February 2011

1
Peter Bower, ‘Turner’s Papers: A Catalogue of the Papers Used by J.M.W. Turner in the Turner Bequest, Clore Gallery, Tate Gallery. Part 1: 1787–1802: TB I–TB LXX’, 1994, Tate catalogue files, unpaginated.

Catalogue entry

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