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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > First Italian Tour 1819-20 > Paris, France, Savoy 2 Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Four Studies of Women in Mâconnaise Costume 1819

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Four Studies of Women in Mâconnaise Costume’ 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 27 Verso:
Four Studies of Women in Mâconnaise Costume 1819
D14031
Turner Bequest CLXXIII 27 a
Pencil on white wove paper, 114 x 185 mm
Inscribed by the artist ‘B’ and ‘White | W’ within figure sketches, and ‘B’ and ‘B’ within inverted figure sketches
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This page contains four studies of female figures, two of which are inverted. All the women wear local Mâconnaise costume and Turner has annotated his drawings with notes concerning colour. The regional dress was described by travel author William Coxe:
The costume of the women of Macon and its neighbourhood is pretty, but singular. It consists of a blue cloth petticoat, with a border of deep red, a jacket of the same, and a small felt hat worn over one side of the head only, displaying a neat little white cap, and all the dressing of the hair; on entering a church they take off their small hat, and carry it in their hands. It is a very pleasing sight on a Sunday, or a fête day, to see so many pretty faces all habited in the same fanciful costume.1
See also a thumbnail sketch of a woman on folio 23 (D14025).

Nicola Moorby
March 2013

1
William Coxe, Galignani’s Travellers Guide through France, Paris 1819, p.62.

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘Four Studies of Women in Mâconnaise Costume 1819 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, March 2013, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, August 2013, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-four-studies-of-women-in-maconnaise-costume-r1142891, accessed 02 August 2025.