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Madame Giuseppina in Turkish Dress

Maker

(artist)
1785-1841

Title

Date of Production

1840

Medium

black and red chalk, graphite, watercolour and bodycolour on buff (now brown) wove paper, laid down

Dimensions

Height: 47.2 cm
Width: 33.2 cm

Accession Number

D.1967.WS.100

Mode of Acquisition

William Wycliffe Spooner, bequest, 1967

Credit

The Courtauld, London (Samuel Courtauld Trust)

Copyright

Work in the public domain

Location

Not currently on display

Keywords

Label Text

Scottish artist David Wilkie travelled to the Middle East in 1840 on a sketching tour. Fascinated by the varied fashion that he saw in Constantinople, but with limited access to female subjects, he painted his Greek landlady, known as Madame Giuseppina, in Turkish dress. The inscription at the base of the drawing provides a rare example of an artist acknowledging the fiction of a European model posing in an Oriental scene.

Provenance

the artist's estate sale, Christie's (London), 25 April 1842, lot 465; purchased there by Henry Graves & Co. (London); Fine Art Society (London), by April 1964; purchased there by Mr and Mrs William Wycliffe Spooner, Ilkley (1882-1967) (£126); Spooner Bequest 1967

Exhibition History

Drawing on Arabian Nights, The Courtauld Gallery, London, 22/02/2023-04/06/2023

Life, Legend, Landscape - Victorian Drawings and Watercolours, The Courtauld Gallery, London, 17/02/2011-15/05/2011

British Watercolours from the Spooner Collection, Huntington Museum and Art Gallery, Los Angeles, 12/02/2005-15/05/2005 ...More

British Watercolours from the Spooner Collection, Huntington Museum of Art, Los Angeles, 12/02/2005-15/05/2005; Wordsworth Trust, Grasmere, 18/07/2005-23/10/2005; Hermitage Rooms, Somerset House, London, 16/11/2005-12/02/2006

The East Imagined, Experienced, Remembered, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, 1988

Mantegna to Cezanne - Master Drawings from the Courtauld, British Museum, London, 24/02/1983-19/06/1983

English Water-Colours: Memorial Exhibition to William Wycliffe
Spooner, Harrogate, 1968 ...Less

Literature

Life, Legend, Landscape - Victorian Drawings and Watercolours, The Courtauld Gallery, 2011
cat. no. 14
ill. on p. 77

The Spooner Collection of British Watercolours, Courtauld Institute Galleries; Huntington Library; Wordsworth Trust, 2005-06
cat. no. 70
ill. on p. 213

The East imagined, experienced, remembered, Walker Art Gallery & Liverpool & England, 1988
cat. no. 68
ill. ...More

Mantegna to Cezanne: Master Drawings from the Courtauld, British Museum, London, 1983
no. 126, p. 103
ill. on p. 119

English Water-Colours: Memorial Exhibition to William Wycliffe Spooner, Harrogate, 1968
cat. no. 63 ...Less

Inscriptions

Watermark: Watermark: none.

Inscription: Recto: lower right edge, brown ink, signed and dated by the artist: "D Wilkie f. Constantinople October 1840".

Collector's mark: none.

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