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

Turner made several 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). The present sheet shows a lady sat at her dressing table, apparently unaware of the artist’s presence as she reads a letter, perhaps hinting at a touch of voyeurism in Turner’s recording of the goings on of the house. The art historian Ian Warrell noted the study’s similarity in terms of subject (and potentially the influence of Jean-Antoine Watteau, 1684–1721) to a pencil drawing of a similar date, D34832 (Turner Bequest CCCXLIV 350), which has itself been connected to Turner’s unfinished oil painting Two Women with a Letter (Tate N055011).2 It certainly seems possible that this, one of the more finished figure studies made at Petworth, fed into Turner’s ideas for the painting, which includes a female figure similarly seen from behind.

Warrell also recorded Turner’s use of a finger or thumb print to aid his depiction of the woman’s shadowy reflection in the oval mirror;3 there are many examples of this practice in the Turner Bequest. The dark reflection is equalled by the black of the woman’s dress, highlighted with flecks of white gouache, while the hue of her hair, shining and golden in the soft light, echoes the mirror’s gilt frame and the chair seen in the foreground.

Warrell also considered the study one of a sequence possibly relating to the same sexual encounter: for more information see the entry for D22731 (Turner Bequest CCXLIV 69).4

Technical notes:

The paper is unevenly torn on the right-hand edge; as noted in the main entry, there is evidence of a finger or thumb print in the depiction of the female figure’s reflection.

Verso:

Blank, save for inscriptions: inscribed in pencil ‘29 | a’ near centre; stamped in black with Turner Bequest monogram and ‘CCXLIV 79’ bottom left.