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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1802-18 Academician and professor > Perspective lectures c.1809-28 > Perspective Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Diagram of a Boat on Water and the Sun, Indicating Cast Shadows and Reflections c.1809

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Diagram of a Boat on Water and the Sun, Indicating Cast Shadows and Reflections’ c.1809
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 79 Recto:
Diagram of a Boat on Water and the Sun, Indicating Cast Shadows and Reflections circa 1809
D07486
Turner Bequest CVIII 79
Pen and ink on white wove paper, 88 x 115 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘79’ top left, upside down
Stamped in black ‘CVIII – 79’ top left, upside down
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The drawing is part of a sequence of notes and diagrams which continues back through the sketchbook to folio 72 verso (D07473). The text continues from the opening passage, on the verso (D07487), to folio 78 verso opposite (D07485), and the diagram relates to passages on the latter page and folio 77 verso (D07483). There is a similar (apparently unfinished) diagram on folio 78 recto (D07484), and a related diagram of a river bank on folio 76 recto (D07480). The semi-diagrammatic drawing on folio 81 verso (D07491) also appears to belong with these notes, concerned with sunlight or light in general in terms of reflections and the casting of light and shadow from polished objects or bodies of water. They relate to Turner’s fifth Royal Academy perspective lecture, on reflection and refraction.
Maurice Davies has registered most of the notes from folio 91 verso (D07511) to folio 72 verso as ‘on light and shadow’;1 those from folio 91 verso to folio 82 verso (D07493) are distinct, dealing with sunlight as parallel or divergent rays.

Matthew Imms
June 2008

1
Davies 1994, p.289.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Diagram of a Boat on Water and the Sun, Indicating Cast Shadows and Reflections c.1809 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, June 2008, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2012, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-diagram-of-a-boat-on-water-and-the-sun-indicating-cast-r1136682, accessed 16 January 2025.