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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > French Tour 1821 > Paris, Seine and Dieppe Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Reclining Nude, Draped with a Red Cloth 1821

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Reclining Nude, Draped with a Red Cloth’ 1821
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 28 Verso:
Reclining Nude, Draped with a Red Cloth 1821
D18568
Turner Bequest CCXI 28a
Pencil and red watercolour on white wove paper, 113 x 189 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This is one of two nude studies in this sketchbook, the other being of a figure in a similar pose on the recto of this page (Tate D18567; Turner Bequest CCXI 28). It is also one of only three sketches in the book which uses watercolour. Turner has used the same red watercolour pigment for the drapery and (much watered down) the flesh tone. There are two sky studies in watercolour on folios 3 and 4 (Tate D18529, D18530; Turner Bequest CCXI 3, 4).
Ian Warrell and Ann Chumbley have compared this study with notes Turner made in the Academies sketchbook, 1804 (Tate D05209; Turner Bequest LXXXIV f.36), but point out that the present figure is more suggestive of erotic intent.1

Thomas Ardill
March 2013

1
Chumbley and Warrell 1989, p.29 no.10.

How to cite

Thomas Ardill, ‘Reclining Nude, Draped with a Red Cloth 1821 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 2014, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-reclining-nude-draped-with-a-red-cloth-r1146264, accessed 24 April 2024.