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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1787-1801 Student and master > History Painting c.1799-1807 > Egyptian Details Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner A Figure with Flying Drapery c.1799-1800

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘A Figure with Flying Drapery’ c.1799-1800
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 67 Verso:
A Figure with Flying Drapery c.1799–1800
D03901
Turner Bequest LXVI 67a
Pencil on blue laid paper, 83 x 166 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘[?Parthean]’ top right
Stamped in black ‘LXVI – 67a’ top left, descending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This study was made with the page turned horizontally. Finberg read the inscription as ‘Parthenon’, and suggested that this figure is the Nike,1 the winged and draped Victory that appeared in various depictions on the Athenian Acropolis. This quick sketch, however, hardly relates to any of them.
The helmet and wide trousers worn by the figure resemble the costume of soldiers of the non-Greek kingdoms of Asia, and this may be intended to be a Parthian. Turner may have noted it in connection with his lost painting of The Army of the Medes Destroyed in the Desart by a Whirlwind, which he showed at the Royal Academy in 1801.2 Another drawing that may relate to the same picture is on folio 75 recto (D03911).

Andrew Wilton
May 2013

1
See Finberg 1909, I, p.168.
2
Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll, The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner, revised ed., New Haven and London 1984, pp.13–15 no.15.

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘A Figure with Flying Drapery c.1799–1800 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, May 2013, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, April 2016, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-a-figure-with-flying-drapery-r1180140, accessed 06 May 2025.