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 72: An Ionic Capital (after Thomas Malton Senior) c.1810

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Lecture Diagram 72: An Ionic Capital (after Thomas Malton Senior)’ c.1810
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Lecture Diagram 72: An Ionic Capital (after Thomas Malton Senior) circa 1810
D17096
Turner Bequest CXCV 125
Pencil and watercolour over transfer ink on white wove paper, 673 x 1005 mm
Watermarked ‘J WHATMAN | 1808’
Inscribed by Turner in red watercolour ‘72’ top left
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘125’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Made by Turner for his lectures as Professor of Perspective at the Royal Academy, Diagram 72 depicting an Ionic capital is based on the right-hand part of 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) by the elder Thomas Malton (1726–1801). It is associated by Maurice Davies with a large group of diagrams illustrating the production of shadows; see note to Diagram 60 (Tate D17085; Turner Bequest CXCV 115). Turner also refers to a diagram numbered ‘72’ when discussing Diagram 52 (Tate D17070; Turner Bequest CXCV 100), a perspective construction of an Ionic capital based on the left portion of Malton’s plate.1 For the preliminary drawing from which Turner traced this diagram, see Tate D17098 (Turner Bequest CXCV 127).
The same capital is represented in perspective, and then with entablature in Diagrams 73 and 73+ (Tate D17097, D17100; Turner Bequest CXCV 126, 129).
1
Turner, ‘Royal Academy Lectures’, circa 1807–38, Department of Western Manuscripts, British Library, London, ADD MS 46151 M folio 18.
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:
Blank, save for an inscription by an unknown hand in pencil ‘117a’ 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 72: An Ionic Capital (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-72-an-ionic-capital-after-thomas-malton-r1136541, accessed 23 April 2024.