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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1830-35 Annual tourist > Erotica and Improvisations c.1834-6 > Colour Studies (1) Sketchbook [Finberg ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner ?A Curtained Bed, with a Naked Woman Reclining on her Side c.1834-6

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘?A Curtained Bed, with a Naked Woman Reclining on her Side’ c.1834-6
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 47 Verso:
?A Curtained Bed, with a Naked Woman Reclining on her Side c.1834–6
D28856
Turner Bequest CCXCI b 47a
Watercolour and pencil on white wove paper, 77 x 101 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Inverted relative to the sketchbook’s foliation, the dark space evoked by the rough washes may be the interior of a curtained bed, as on many other pages here. The pale area at the centre and left has been defined with pencil work to outline the front views of a reclining naked woman.
For a discussion of the improvisatory and often erotic nature of the watercolour studies making up most of this sketchbook, see the Introduction.

Matthew Imms
May 2014

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘?A Curtained Bed, with a Naked Woman Reclining on her Side c.1834–6 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, May 2014, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, September 2014, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-a-curtained-bed-with-a-naked-woman-reclining-on-her-side-r1149077, accessed 26 April 2024.