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 > IV. Diagrams after John Joshua Kirby's ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Lecture Diagram: Building in Perspective with Vanishing Lines c.1822-8

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Lecture Diagram: Building in Perspective with Vanishing Lines’ c.1822-8
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Lecture Diagram: Building in Perspective with Vanishing Lines circa 1822–8
D17109
Turner Bequest CXCV 138
Pencil and watercolour on white wove paper, 731 x 1028 mm
Watermarked ‘J WHATMAN | TURKEY MILL | 1822’
Inscribed by Turner in red and black watercolour with various terms and initial letters within diagram
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘138’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Prepared in connection with his lectures as Professor of Perspective at the Royal Academy, Turner’s diagram is based on one by John Joshua Kirby (1716–74) in Dr Brook Taylor’s Method of Perspective Made Easy; both in Theory and Practice (London 1768, vol.II, pl.IX, fig.4). It appears related to the series of diagrams illustrating how to draw a house or rectangular object in perspective which Turner used for his history of techniques in Lecture 3 (Tate D17049–D17053).
Technical notes:
Peter Bower writes that the diagram is on two Elephant size sheets of Whatman paper glued together with a slight overlap. They were made by Finch and Thomas Robert Hollingworth, at Turkey Mill, Maidstone, Kent.1
1
Notes in Tate catalogue files.
Verso:
Blank, save for an inscription by an unknown hand in pencil ‘132’ bottom left.

Andrea Fredericksen
June 2004

Supported by The Samuel H. Kress Foundation

Revised by David Blayney Brown
January 2012

How to cite

Andrea Fredericksen, ‘Lecture Diagram: Building in Perspective with Vanishing Lines c.1822–8 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, June 2004, revised by David Blayney Brown, January 2012, 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-lecture-diagram-building-in-perspective-with-vanishing-lines-r1136748, accessed 22 November 2024.