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). This is one of two studies to include what looks to be the same seventeenth-century Chinese black and gold lacquer cabinet with a blue vase on it (for the other, see Tate D22737; Turner Bequest CCXLIV 75). The presence of yellow bed curtains in one study and green in the other, however, suggest two different bedrooms, leading the Turner scholars Ian Warrell and Christopher Rowell to note the possibility that Turner was ‘playing with variations on a theme’ rather than accurately describing different rooms (although Rowell notes there are two very similar cabinets at Petworth).1 It is possible that the intimate encounters recorded in some of the bedroom drawings are also imagined (see the entries for Tate D22731–D22732; Turner Bequest CCXLIV 69–70).

Another explanation for the varying curtain colours could be a simple difference in light conditions and colour choice: in another bedroom study Turner shows a pair of bed curtains as yellow where they catch the light, but green in the shadow (D22736; Turner Bequest CCXLIV 74). As the interior surrounding the bed and cabinet is only loosely indicated in the present study, it is difficult to ascertain if it is the same room as in D22737, bed curtains aside. However, a very similar chair appears in both compositions.

Verso:

Blank, save for black chalk marks, perhaps rubbed on to the surface from another sheet, and inscriptions: inscribed in pencil ‘27 | a’ near centre; stamped in black with Turner Bequest monogram and ‘CCXLIV 72’ bottom left.