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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > First Italian Tour 1819-20 > Vatican Fragments Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Studies of Italian Figures 1819

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Studies of Italian Figures’ 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 69 Recto:
Studies of Italian Figures 1819
D15228
Turner Bequest CLXXX 68
Pencil on white wove paper, 161 x 101 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘68’ top left, inverted
Stamped in black ‘CLXXX 68’ top left, inverted
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This page contains studies of seven figures drawn from life. Although the rough nature of the sketches makes the details difficult to decipher, they appear to include a man and a woman wearing fine clothes, and a couple of fishermen sitting on a boat. Further figure studies within this sketchbook can be found on the inner front cover and on folios 6 verso, 14 verso, 15 verso, 33 verso, 64, 80, 80 verso, 82 and 82 verso (D40619, D15114, D15130, D15132, D15167, D15223, D15245, D15246, D15249 and D15250; Turner Bequest CLXXX 5a, 13a, 14a, 32a, 63, 79, 79a, 81 and 81a).
Verso:
Blank, however, the page has been prepared with a grey wash in readiness for further use. Peter Bower has noted that there are eight such leaves bound into this sketchbook, although the only one which has been worked upon is folio 71 verso (D15231, Turner Bequest CLXXX 70a). All the washed pages come from a single sheet of trimmed white wove Whatman paper.1

Nicola Moorby
November 2009

1
Peter Bower, Turner’s Papers: A Study of the Manufacture, Selection and Use of his Drawing Papers 1787–1820, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1990, p.115.

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘Studies of Italian Figures 1819 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, November 2009, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2012, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-studies-of-italian-figures-r1139640, accessed 20 September 2024.