'Lecture Diagram: Reflections and Refractions in Two Transparent Globes, One Half-Filled with Water', Joseph Mallord William Turner

Artwork details

Artist

Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775‑1851)

Title

Lecture Diagram: Reflections and Refractions in Two Transparent Globes, One Half-Filled with Water

From II. Various Perspective Diagrams

Date c.1810

MediumGraphite and watercolour on paper

Dimensionssupport: 224 x 400 mm

Collection

Tate

Acquisition Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856

Reference

D40025

Turner Bequest CXCV 177 c

View this artwork by appointment, at Tate Britain's Prints and Drawings Rooms

Catalogue entry

Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851

Lecture Diagram: Reflections and Refractions in Two Transparent Globes, One Half-Filled with Water circa 1810

D40025
Turner Bequest CXCV 177c

Watercolour over indications of pencil on white wove paper, 224 x 400 mm

Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856

Exhibition history

References

Turner produced this drawing of two transparent globes, along with a few others of globes of differing materials (Tate D17147, D17148, D40024, D40026; Turner Bequest CXCV 176, 177a, d), for a lecture on ‘reflexies’ (reflections) and their relationship to light and shade, to be given as Professor of Perspective at the Royal Academy. See note to D17148 for related lecture texts and sketches and the fact that this diagram and three others were once on a single larger sheet. For Turner’s discussion of reflecting spheres in Lecture 5, and its possible influence on his friend John Soane, see notes to D17147.

Verso:

Currently laid down

Andrea Fredericksen
June 2004

Supported by The Samuel H. Kress Foundation

Revised by David Blayney Brown
January 2012

Read this catalogue entry in full

This catalogue entry is part of: David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, December 2012.