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 > I. Numbered Perspective Diagrams > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Lecture Diagram 21: Representation of a Globe in Perspective (after Thomas Malton Senior) c.1810

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Lecture Diagram 21: Representation of a Globe in Perspective (after Thomas Malton Senior)’ c.1810
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Lecture Diagram 21: Representation of a Globe in Perspective (after Thomas Malton Senior) circa 1810
D17034
Turner Bequest CXCV 64
Pencil, pen and ink and watercolour on white wove paper, 486 x 687 mm
Watermarked ‘1794 | J WHATMAN’
Inscribed by Turner in red watercolour ‘21’ top left
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘64’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Maurice Davies cites Diagram 21 and its corresponding lecture text as one of the many examples of Turner adapting a passage from the elder Thomas Malton (1726–1801) for his own teaching as Professor of Perspective at the Royal Academy. For instance, in an early version of his discussion devoted to curvilinear perspective, Turner quotes a theorem found in Malton’s A Compleat Treatise on Perspective in Theory and Practice on the True Principles of Dr Brook Taylor (1775): ‘The representation of a globe in perspective is an ellipsis, excepting when the centre coincides with the centre of the picture, then it is a circle’.1 Turner copied Malton’s diagram (pl.VII, fig.32), but, according to Davies, ‘realised that he was considering spheres (globes) before he had finished with circles and without a second thought simply amended the passage’ to suit his meaning. In the manuscript used for lecturing in 1811, Turner rewrote the passage thus: ‘The representation of a circle in perspective is an ellipsis, excepting when the centre coincides with the centre of the picture, then only it is a true circle’.2 Because of this alteration, the accompanying diagram is no longer relevant to his lecture discussion. There is a sketch possibly after Malton’s diagram in Turner’s lecture notes.3
1
Turner, ‘Royal Academy Lectures’, circa 1807–38, Department of Western Manuscripts, British Library, London, ADD MS 46151 D folio 5 verso; based on Malton 1775, p.95. See also E folio 11.
2
Turner, ‘Royal Academy Lectures’, circa 1807–38, Department of Western Manuscripts, British Library, London, ADD MS 46151 L folio 9 verso.
3
Ibid.
Technical notes:
Peter Bower states that the sheet is Super Royal size Whatman paper made by William Balston and Finch and Thomas Robert Hollingworth, at Turkey Mill, Maidstone, Kent. He writes that all ‘the sheets in this batch have some streaking across the sheet, probably from a fault in the sizing’.1
1
Notes in Tate catalogue files.
Verso:
Blank, save for an inscription by an unknown hand in pencil ‘66’ bottom left.

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 21: Representation of a Globe in Perspective (after Thomas Malton Senior) 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-21-representation-of-a-globe-in-perspective-r1136485, accessed 26 April 2024.