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

This is one of a large group of separate studies, most of which were made in gouache and watercolour on blue paper, associated with a visit to Petworth House in West Sussex, the home of the third Earl of Egremont. For more information, see the Introduction to this section.

Turner made numerous studies of the bedrooms at Petworth during his 1827 visit; for more information and a list see the entry for Tate D22677 (Turner Bequest CCXLIV 15). Like a couple of other studies catalogued in this section (see, for example, Tate D22731; Turner Bequest CCXLIV 69), this study, shadowy and almost blurry in effect, takes a nude woman as its subject. Whether the intimate and erotic scenes included here, set in the bedrooms of Petworth House, record real or imagined encounters is unknown. Ian Warrell has read the present study as one of a sequence possibly relating to the same sexual encounter: for more information see the entry for D22731 (Turner Bequest CCXLIV 69).1

Technical notes:

There is a small area of blue pigment in the upper left, which is not, apparently, part of the original drawing.

Verso:

Blank, save for inscriptions: inscribed in pencil ‘26 | a’ near centre; stamped in black with Turner Bequest monogram and ‘CCXLIV 70’ bottom left.