'Lecture Diagram: The Reflection and Refraction of Rays of Light', Joseph Mallord William Turner

Artwork details

Artist

Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775‑1851)

Title

Lecture Diagram: The Reflection and Refraction of Rays of Light

From IV. Diagrams after John Joshua Kirby's Dr Brook Taylor's Method of Perspective

Date c.1817-28

MediumGraphite and watercolour on paper

Dimensionssupport: 487 x 690 mm

Collection

Tate

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

Reference

D17006

Turner Bequest CXCV 36

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

Catalogue entry

Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851

Lecture Diagram: The Reflection and Refraction of Rays of Light circa 1817–28

D17006
Turner Bequest CXCV 36

Pencil and watercolour on white wove paper, 487 x 690 mm
Watermarked ‘J WHATMAN | TURKEY MILLS | 1817’
Inscribed by Turner in red and black watercolour over pencil with various initial letters within diagram and in pencil ‘1’ top left and ‘2’ top right
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘36’ bottom right

Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856

References

Prepared in connection with his lectures as Professor of Perspective at the Royal Academy, Turner’s diagram of two circles containing figures is based on illustrations from Dr Brook Taylor’s Method of Perspective Made Easy; both in Theory and Practice: in Two Books (London 1768, vol.I, pl.II, figs. 7 and 8) by John Joshua Kirby (1716–74). Kirby used them to demonstrate ‘the reflection and refraction of the rays of light’. There is a sketch of the diagram in a manuscript probably used by Turner for lecturing in 1819.1

Turner, ‘Royal Academy Lectures’, circa 1807–38, Department of Western Manuscripts, British Library, London, ADD MS 46151 Y folios 5, 5 verso. On the dating of this lecture material, see John Gage, Colour in Turner: Poetry and Truth, London 1969, p.249 note 170 and Maurice William Davies, ‘J.M.W. Turner’s Approach to Perspective in His Royal Academy Lectures of 1811’, unpublished Ph.D thesis, Courtauld Institute of Art, London 1994, p.279.

Technical notes:

Peter Bower writes that the sheet is from a batch of Super Royal size Whatman paper made by Finch and Thomas Robert Hollingworth, at Turkey Mill, Maidstone, Kent.1

Notes in Tate catalogue files.

Verso:

Blank, save for an inscription by an unknown hand in pencil ‘19’ bottom left.

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.