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 an Irregular Figure in Plan and Perspective, after Aleaume and Migon c.1809

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Diagram of an Irregular Figure in Plan and Perspective, after Aleaume and Migon’ c.1809
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 66 Recto:
Diagram of an Irregular Figure in Plan and Perspective, after Aleaume and Migon circa 1809
D07465
Turner Bequest CVIII 66
Pen and ink on white wove paper, 88 x 115 mm
Inscribed by Turner in ink with figures at various points on axes of the diagram, and ‘The Sieur Aleaume | [?Affume] | Engineer to the King | and Stephan Migon | 1643’ top right
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘66’ top left, upside down
Stamped in black ‘CVIII – 66’ top left, upside down
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Maurice Davies has identified the source of this diagram as Jacques Aleaume and Etienne Migon, La Perspective speculative et practique, Paris 1643, page 151; it is one of several copied into the Perspective sketchbook which Turner did not use for his perspective lectures.1 He probably consulted the copy at the British Museum (since transferred to the British Library, London).
Turner seems to have copied the diagam (the last in the book) almost at random, making a rough approximation of the original, which is very precisely engraved with various scales along each side as an illustration to the convoluted ‘Probleme XI. Trouver, dans un Tableau, l’apparence de quelque Figure Rectiligne, que ce soit; par la connoissance qui sera donnée, de ses Angles, & de ses Costez’, running from pages 149 to 155.
1
Davies 1994, pp.98, 289, 310 note 76.
Verso:
Blank

Matthew Imms
June 2008

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Diagram of an Irregular Figure in Plan and Perspective, after Aleaume and Migon 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-an-irregular-figure-in-plan-and-perspective-after-r1136661, accessed 11 January 2025.