J.M.W. Turner
Joseph Mallord William Turner Petworth House: Study of Pink Bed Curtains 1827
Joseph Mallord William Turner,
Petworth House: Study of Pink Bed Curtains
1827
Petworth House: Study of Pink Bed–Curtains 1827
D22677
Turner Bequest CCXLIV 15
Turner Bequest CCXLIV 15
Gouache and watercolour on blue wove paper, 193 x 142 mm
Stamped in black ‘CCXLIV 15’ bottom left in relation to image
Blind stamped with Turner Bequest monogram bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCXLIV 15’ bottom left in relation to image
Blind stamped with Turner Bequest monogram bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Exhibition history
1962
English Drawings and Water Colors from British Collections, National Gallery of Art, Washington, February–April 1962, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, April–June 1962 (86).
1938
[Display of Watercolours], National Gallery, London, December 1938–September 1939 (no catalogue, as ‘Rose-coloured drapery’).
1963
Turner Watercolors from The British Museum: A Loan Exhibition Circulated by the Smithsonian Institution, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, September–October 1963, Museum of Fine Arts of Houston, Texas, November, M.H. de Young Memorial Museum, San Francisco, December 1963–January 1964, Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio, January–March, William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art, Kansas City, Missouri, March–April, Brooklyn Museum, New York, May, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, June–July 1964 (27).
1965
[Display of watercolours from the Turner Bequest], Tate Gallery, London, ? – [?]March 1965 (no catalogue, as ‘Bed with crimson silk curtains’).
1970
Turner: Watercolours Lent by the British Museum, Musée Provisoire d’Art Moderne, Brussels, November 1970–January 1971 (39).
1972
Das Aquarell 1400–1950, Haus der Kunst, Munich, October 1972–January 1973 (149).
1974
Turner 1775–1851, Royal Academy, London, November 1974–March 1975 (343).
1977
Turner Watercolors: An Exhibition of Works Loaned by The Trustees of the British Museum, International Exhibitions Foundation tour, Cleveland Museum of Art, September–November 1977, Detroit Institute of Arts, December 1977–February 1978, Philadelphia Museum of Art, March–April ([25]).
2005
Turner at Petworth, Tate Gallery, London, October 2005–April 2006 (no catalogue).
2002
Turner at Petworth, Petworth House, Petworth, July–September 2002 (69).
References
1909
A.J. Finberg, A Complete Inventory of the Drawings of the Turner Bequest, London 1909, vol.II, p.744, CCXLIV 15, as ‘Bed, with crimson silk curtains’.
1949
Kenneth Clark, ‘Turner at Petworth’, Ambassador, no.8, 1949, p.56 pl.12, as ‘The Pink Bed Hangings’.
1962
Jonathan Mayne and John Woodward, An Exhibition of English Drawings and Water Colors from British Collections, Sponsored by the English-Speaking Unions of the United States and the British Commonwealth, exhibition catalogue, National Gallery of Art, Washington 1962, no.86 as ‘A Bed With Crimson Silk Curtains’.
1963
Edward Croft-Murray, Turner Watercolors from The British Museum: A Loan Exhibition Circulated by the Smithsonian Institution, exhibition catalogue, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC 1963, no.27 as ‘Petworth, the Rose-Curtained Bed’.
1970
Luke Herrmann, Turner: Watercolours Lent by the British Museum, exhibition catalogue, Musée Provisoire d’Art Moderne, Brussels 1970, no.39, p.9.
1972
Walter Koschatzky, Herbert Pée, Dieter Kuhrmann and others, Das Aquarell 1400–1950, exhibition catalogue, Haus der Kunst, Munich 1972, no.149, p.107.
1974
Martin Butlin, Andrew Wilton and John Gage, Turner 1775–1851, exhibition catalogue, Royal Academy, London 1974, as ‘Petworth: Study of a Bed with Pink Satin Curtains’.
1977
Andrew Wilton, Turner Watercolors: An Exhibition of Works Loaned by The Trustees of the British Museum, exhibition catalogue, Cleveland Museum of Art 1977, no.[25] reproduced as ‘Petworth: Study of a Bed with Pink Satin Curtains’, p.14.
1989
Martin Butlin, Mollie Luther and Ian Warrell, Turner at Petworth: Painter and Patron, London 1989, pp.69, 146, 147, 207 pl.57, as ‘Study of Pink Bed-Curtains’.
1990
Martin Butlin, Mollie Luther and Ian Warrell, Turner: Les Années Egremont: Chefs d’oeuvre inédits, trans. Tamara Préaud, Paris 1990, pl.57.
2002
Christopher Rowell, Ian Warrell and David Blayney Brown, Turner at Petworth, exhibition catalogue, Petworth House, Petworth 2002, pp.162 fig.154, 163, 195 no.69.
2003
Ian Warrell, ‘Exploring the “Dark Side”: Ruskin and the Problem of Turner’s Erotica’, with ‘A Checklist of Erotic Sketches in the Turner Bequest’, British Art Journal, vol.4, no.1, Spring 2003, p.22.
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.
The subject of this evocative study is Petworth’s crimson rococo state bed, made for the second Earl of Egremont in around 1758. It is identifiable due to the distinctive carved base, depicted along the bottom of the study, as well as the bed’s height and long curtains.1 Christopher Rowell noted that the bed was designed for the State Bedroom on the ground floor of Petworth House.2 This room was converted into the White Library in the 1770s, and Turner must have instead seen it in one of the upper rooms; it was located towards the south of the house in the ‘Middle West Room’ by the time of the 1837 inventory.3
Turner’s other studies of Petworth’s bedrooms (Tate D22679, D22710, D22731–D22732, D22736–D22739, D22745, D22777; Turner Bequest CCXLIV 17, 48, 69–70, 74–77, 83, 115) are for the most part difficult to identify in terms of specific rooms. Some of them (see, for example, D22745) share a hint of the eroticism critics have read in the rich folds of crimson fabric encasing the bed in the present sketch.4 As others have noted,5 John Ruskin detected the influence of Venetian painting in this study6. This affinity seems largely a result of the colour palette, with the rich pinkish red of the fabric seen against the blue of the paper Turner used for most of his 1827 Petworth studies.
It is impossible to determine if the figures glimpsed in the Petworth bedroom studies, seen in various states of dress and undress, are real or figments of Turner’s imagination. It is clear, however, thanks to those aspects of Petworth’s interiors specifically shown (for example, the state bed seen here and the cabinet in Tate D22734; Turner Bequest CCXLIV 72), that the bedrooms themselves reveal details specific to the architecture and contents of Petworth: clearly, Turner enjoyed sufficient freedom in the house to roam these areas during his 1827 stay.
Verso:
Blank, save for inscriptions: inscribed in pencil ‘[?]Toh’ upper centre, ‘7 | a’ near centre’, and ‘15’ lower centre; stamped in black with Turner Bequest monogram and ‘CCXLIV 15’ bottom left.
Elizabeth Jacklin
February 2019
How to cite
Elizabeth Jacklin, ‘Petworth House: Study of Pink Bed–Curtains 1827’, catalogue entry, February 2019, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, November 2024, https://www