J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1830-35 Annual tourist > Erotica and Improvisations c.1834-6 > Colour Studies (2) Sketchbook [Finberg ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner A Curtained Bed, with a Naked Woman Reclining, Possibly with a Companion c.1834-6

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘A Curtained Bed, with a Naked Woman Reclining, Possibly with a Companion’ c.1834-6
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 34 Verso:
A Curtained Bed, with a Naked Woman Reclining, Possibly with a Companion c.1834–6
D28930
Turner Bequest CCXCI c 34
Watercolour on white wove paper, 79 x 101 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Inverted relative to the sketchbook’s foliation, within the shadowy setting of a curtained bed a naked woman appears to recline with her head framed by the curve of her arm towards the right. Another figure is possibly indicated beyond, but this is open to interpretation.
For a discussion of the improvisatory and often erotic nature of the watercolour studies making up most of this sketchbook, see the Introduction.
Technical notes:
The unaccessioned, blank recto is numbered in red ink ‘34’ and stamped ‘CCXCI(c) – 34’; it bears slight watercolour offsetting from folio 33 verso (D28928). There is some offsetting from the present page onto the unaccessioned recto of folio 35 opposite (its verso being D28932).

Matthew Imms
May 2014

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘A Curtained Bed, with a Naked Woman Reclining, Possibly with a Companion c.1834–6 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, May 2014, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, September 2014, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-a-curtained-bed-with-a-naked-woman-reclining-possibly-with-a-r1149009, accessed 25 April 2024.