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 > II. Various Perspective Diagrams > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Lecture Diagram: Perspective Method for a Cube c.1816-28

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Lecture Diagram: Perspective Method for a Cube’ c.1816-28
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Lecture Diagram: Perspective Method for a Cube circa 1816–28
D16985
Turner Bequest CXCV 16
Pencil and watercolour on white wove paper, 480 x 599 mm
Watermarked ‘J WHATMAN | 1816’
Inscribed by Turner in black watercolour various initial letters within diagram
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘16’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Made in connection with Turner’s lectures as Professor of Perspective at the Royal Academy, this diagram depicts an unidentified method for drawing a cube in perspective. Along with another also from an untraced source (Tate D16982; Turner Bequest CXCV 13), it would have supplemented already existing lecture material, most likely the history of techniques in Lecture 3.
Technical notes:
Peter Bower (unpublished notes)1 writes that the sheet is Medium size Whatman paper made by William Balston, at Springfield Mill, Maidstone, Kent. This is ‘the best made of all the papers found amongst the perspective drawings’.
1
Notes in Tate catalogue files.
Verso:
Blank, save for an inscription by an unknown hand in pencil ‘43’ bottom left.

Andrea Fredericksen
January 2004

Supported by The Samuel H. Kress Foundation

Revised by David Blayney Brown
January 2012

How to cite

Andrea Fredericksen, ‘Lecture Diagram: Perspective Method for a Cube c.1816–28 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, January 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-perspective-method-for-a-cube-r1136794, accessed 24 November 2024.