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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1787-1801 Student and master > North Wales 1799-1801 > Dolbadarn Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner A Group of Crouching Male Figures ?Playing Dice 1799

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘A Group of Crouching Male Figures ?Playing Dice’ 1799
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 111 Verso:
A Group of Crouching Male Figures ?Playing Dice 1799
D02159
Turner Bequest XLVI 111a
Pencil on white wove paper, 79 x 130 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Made with the page turned horizontally, this is perhaps a note of some of the workmen engaged on the building of Fonthill Abbey while Turner was staying there in 1799; see the Fonthill sketchbook (Tate D02197; Turner Bequest XLVII 20). Alternatively, this group of figures may relate to one or more of the historical subjects Turner was contemplating at this time; see for instance folios 59 verso and 60 recto (D02088, D02089) in this book.

Andrew Wilton
May 2013

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘A Group of Crouching Male Figures ?Playing Dice 1799 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 2016, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-a-group-of-crouching-male-figures-playing-dice-r1180018, accessed 25 April 2024.