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 c.1834-6

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘A Curtained Bed, with a Naked Woman Reclining’ c.1834-6
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 14 Verso:
A Curtained Bed, with a Naked Woman Reclining c.1834–6
D28890
Turner Bequest CCXCI c 14
Pencil and 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, the bright form within a shadowy curtained bed could scarcely be read as a reclining woman without the perfunctory articulation of her breasts and hip with pencil strokes.
For a discussion of the improvisatory and often erotic nature of the watercolour studies making up most of this sketchbook, see the Introduction.
The unaccessioned, blank recto is numbered in red ink ‘14’ and stamped ‘CCXCI(c) – 14’.

Matthew Imms
May 2014

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘A Curtained Bed, with a Naked Woman Reclining 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-r1148989, accessed 19 April 2024.