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 > Fishing at the Weir Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner A Dark Interior or Curtained Bed, with a Figure or Figures c.1834-6

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘A Dark Interior or Curtained Bed, with a Figure or Figures’ c.1834-6
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 5 Recto:
A Dark Interior or Curtained Bed, with a Figure or Figures c.1834–6
D27733
Turner Bequest CCLXXXI 5
Watercolour and pencil on white wove paper, 79 x 101 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘5’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCLXXXI – 5’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
As set out in the Introduction, numerous pages in the first third of this sketchbook have had rough watercolour washes applied, which have then been developed into compositions to varying degrees. Here, the setting may be a dark interior or a curtained bed, which Raphael Rosenberg has interpreted as an erotic image.1 There seem to be indications of a head in profile, perhaps another, naked limbs, and possibly an oval mirror in the background, though some of these may be fortuitous readings of the barely manipulated cursory marks formed by the washes.
1
See Rosenberg 2007, p.327 note 24.
Verso:
Blank, save for slight traces of watercolour and offsetting from the ink inscription on folio 6 recto opposite (D27734).

Matthew Imms
April 2014

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘A Dark Interior or Curtained Bed, with a Figure or Figures c.1834–6 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, April 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-dark-interior-or-curtained-bed-with-a-figure-or-figures-r1149097, accessed 19 April 2024.