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 Construction of an Ionic Capital c.1810

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Lecture Diagram: Perspective Construction of an Ionic Capital’ c.1810
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Lecture Diagram: Perspective Construction of an Ionic Capital circa 1810
D17098
Turner Bequest CXCV 127
Pencil and watercolour on white wove paper, 671 x 1004 mm
Watermarked ‘J WHATMAN | 1808’
 
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 is based on an illustration from A Compleat Treatise on Perspective in Theory and Practice on the True Principles of Dr Brook Taylor (1775, pl.XXII, fig.104) [on right]) by the elder Thomas Malton (1726–1801). There is a small pencil sketch of a column base at the bottom left of sheet. Indications of Turner’s transfer process on the back suggest that he used the diagram to trace the guiding lines for Diagrams 72 and 73 (Tate 17096, D17097; Turner Bequest CXCV 125, 126). For another rendering of an Ionic capital after Malton see Tate D17078; Turner Bequest CXCV 108.
Technical notes:
Peter Bower states that the sheet is Double Elephant size Whatman paper made by William Balston, at Springfield Mill, Maidstone, Kent.1
1
Notes in Tate catalogue files.
Verso:
See Tate D40009.

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: Perspective Construction of an Ionic Capital c.1810 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-perspective-construction-of-an-ionic-capital-r1136771, accessed 21 November 2024.