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

Turner’s drawing is inverted relative to the sketchbook’s foliation. It shows the head and bust of a woman in a low-cut dress with full sleeves; her face is left blank, with suggestions of ringlets. Ian Warrell has observed that it ‘seems to be by (or after)’ Sir Anthony Van Dyck (1599–1641), ‘an artist who was very much on his mind during the early 1830s because of his prominence in the collection at Petworth House, where Turner was often the guest of Lord Egremont’.1

The many 1827 colour studies made in and around the great Sussex house include one copied from a three-quarter length Van Dyck of Lucy Percy, Countess of Carlisle (National Trust, Petworth House) in a similar left-facing pose (Tate D22762; Turner Bequest CCXLIV 100); see also D22676 (CCXLIV 14). Warrell has suggested that the present sketch was ‘possibly based on a version of Queen Henrietta Maria’,2 or Elizabeth Mordaunt, Countess of Peterborough.3

Except for this page, folios 56 verso–59 recto (D32036–D32041) show aspects of the north-eastern reaches of the Grand Canal. There is a comparable study of a woman, perhaps from life, among other subjects on folio 98 recto (D32111). For this sketchbook’s somewhat convoluted general sequence,4 see its Introduction.

Technical notes:

Folios 57 verso–60 recto (D32038–D32043) all share a pale brown splash or stain across an outer corner (at the foot of the page as foliated).