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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1830-35 Annual tourist > Nude Studies and Erotica c.1830-40 > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner A Reclining Nude Woman c.1833

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘A Reclining Nude Woman’ c.1833
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
A Reclining Nude Woman c.1833
D33942
Turner Bequest CCCXLI 231
Chalk on grey wove paper, 96 x 137 mm
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram towards top left
Inscribed in red ink ‘231’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCCXLI – 231’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Ian Warrell has linked Tate D33942–D33945 (Turner Bequest CCCXLI 231, 231v, 232, 232v) as ‘Studies of a female nude on grey paper’, connecting them to similar small, divided-up sheets used in Austria in 1833. He compares the use of red and white chalks to the technique of a sequence of studies of a male nude in the Life Class (2) sketchbook of the later 1830s1 (Tate D27482–D27513; Turner Bequest CCLXXIX b 2–33).
See also the figure studies in chalks on pages washed in grey in the Whalers sketchbook of about 1845 (Tate D35256–D35258; Turner Bequest CCCLIII 17, 18, 19), particularly D35256.
The verso is D33943, a technically similar figure drawing.
1
Warrell 2003, p.25.
Technical notes:
Ian Warrell has noted that the left-hand torn edge here matches the right-hand edge of D33945.1

Matthew Imms
September 2016

1
Ibid.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘A Reclining Nude Woman c.1833 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, September 2016, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, February 2017, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-a-reclining-nude-woman-r1184324, accessed 24 April 2024.