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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1787-1801 Student and master > Bristol and Malmesbury 1791 > Bristol and Malmesbury Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Study of the Head of a Woman in a Ruched Cap 1791

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Study of the Head of a Woman in a Ruched Cap’ 1791
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 2 Recto:
Study of the Head of a Woman in a Ruched Cap 1791
D00073
Turner Bequest VI 2
Pencil on white wove paper, 185 x 263 mm
Stamped in black ‘VI 2’ top left, upside down
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The drawing is inverted relative to the sketchbook’s foliation. A second sketch on this page, apparently showing a building and trees, has been obliterated. Another study of a woman in a ruched cap, in the Marford Mill sketchbook (Tate D00310; Turner Bequest XX 35), has been thought to show Turner’s mother. This one is more likely to be the portrait of a member of the Narraway family, with whom Turner was staying in Bristol when this sketchbook was in use. A drawing in a private collection, also traditionally identified as Turner’s mother, may also in fact show, as Wilton has suggested,1 another member of the Narraway family; most likely a man, and possibly Mr Narraway himself.
1
Andrew Wilton, Turner in His Time, p.22, fig.21.
Verso:
Blank; stains of grey colour, transferred from folio 3 recto (D00074), probably at the time of the 1928 flood; stamped in black ink with Turner Bequest monogram.

Andrew Wilton
April 2012

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘Study of the Head of a Woman in a Ruched Cap 1791 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, April 2012, 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-study-of-the-head-of-a-woman-in-a-ruched-cap-r1140121, accessed 19 April 2024.