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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1787-1801 Student and master > Wales 1798 > Dynevor Castle Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Studies of Two Recumbent Nude Figures 1798

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Studies of Two Recumbent Nude Figures’ 1798
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 75 Recto:
Studies of Two Recumbent Nude Figures 1798
D01585
Turner Bequest XL 73
Pen and ink on white wove paper, 95 x 135 mm
Watermark ‘1794 | J Whatman’
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘73’ top right, ascending vertically
Stamped in black ‘XL – 73’ top right, ascending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The studies, drawn with the page turned horizontally and the gutter at the bottom, apparently relate to the composition sketched on folio 8 verso (D01476; Turner Bequest XL 8a). Compare also the foreground figures in The Fifth Plague of Egypt, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1800 (Indianapolis Museum of Art).1 The left-hand male figure is reminiscent of the dead youth in the centre foreground of the famous painting of The Destruction of the Children of Niobe (Yale Center for British Art, New Haven) by Richard Wilson (1713–1782), engraved by William Woollett in 1761. The half-obliterated figure on the right is probably female.

Andrew Wilton
May 2013

1
Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll, The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner, revised ed., New Haven and London 1984, p.10–12 no.13, pl.10 (colour).

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘Studies of Two Recumbent Nude Figures 1798 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, May 2013, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, April 2015, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-studies-of-two-recumbent-nude-figures-r1173824, accessed 26 April 2024.