Lecture Diagram 42: Perspective Construction of a Tuscan Entablature

c.1810

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In Tate Britain

Prints and Drawings Room

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Artist: Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Part of: I. Numbered Perspective Diagrams
Medium: Graphite and watercolour on paper
Dimensions: Support: 672 x 1004 mm
Collection: Tate
Acquisition: Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Reference: D17062
Turner Bequest CXCV 92

Catalogue entry

Prepared by Turner for Lecture 3 as Professor of Perspective at the Royal Academy, Diagram 42 was presented as he continued his discussion of the architectural orders and their component parts (see note to Diagram 40; Tate D17058; Turner Bequest CXCV 88). Diagram 42 illustrates a method for drawing a Tuscan entablature in perspective. The lecture text describes how to draw such elements as the architrave, shaft and capital.1

Turner, ‘Royal Academy Lectures’, circa 1807–38, Department of Western Manuscripts, British Library, London, ADD MS 46151 M folios 15–16 verso.

Technical notes:

Peter Bower states that the sheet is Double Elephant size Whatman paper made by William Balston, at Springfield Mill, Maidstone, Kent. The largest group within the perspective drawings, this batch of paper shows a ‘grid-like series of shadows that can be seen within the sheet in transmitted light. This appears to have been caused by a trial method of supporting the woven wire mould cover on the mould’. Because this is the only batch he has seen with such a feature, Bower believes that ‘it may have been tried on one pair of moulds and for some reason never tried again’. He also writes that it is ‘not the best Whatman paper by any means; the weight of this group is also very variable and the moulds have not been kept clean during use’.1

Notes in Tate catalogue files.

Verso:

Blank, save for an inscription by an unknown hand in pencil ‘92’ bottom left.

Andrea Fredericksen
June 2004

Supported by The Samuel H. Kress Foundation

Revised by David Blayney Brown
January 2012

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