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 > Perspective Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Diagram of a Boat on Water with the Sun's Reflection c.1809

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Diagram of a Boat on Water with the Sun's Reflection’ c.1809
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 78 Recto:
Diagram of a Boat on Water with the Sun’s Reflection circa 1809
D07484
Turner Bequest CVIII 78
Pen and ink on white wove paper, 88 x 115 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘78’ top left, upside down
Stamped in black ‘CVIII – 78’ top left, upside down
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The drawing is part of a sequence of notes and diagrams which begins on folio 79 verso (D07487) and continues back through the sketchbook to folio 72 verso (D07473). The text continues from the verso (D07485) to folio 77 verso opposite (D07483), and the diagram relates to passages on both pages. It appears to be an unfinished version of the similar diagram on folio 79 recto (D07486); there is also a related diagram of a river bank on folio 76 recto (D07480). The semi-diagrammatic drawing on folio 81 verso (D07491) also appears to belong with these notes, concerned with sunlight or light in general in terms of reflections and the casting of light and shadow from polished objects or bodies of water. They relate to Turner’s fifth Royal Academy perspective lecture, on reflection and refraction.
Maurice Davies has registered most of the notes from folio 91 verso (D07511) to folio 72 verso as ‘on light and shadow’;1 those from folio 91 verso to folio 82 verso (D07493) are distinct, dealing with sunlight as parallel or divergent rays.

Matthew Imms
June 2008

1
Davies 1994, p.289.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Diagram of a Boat on Water with the Sun’s Reflection c.1809 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, June 2008, 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-diagram-of-a-boat-on-water-with-the-suns-reflection-r1136680, accessed 14 May 2024.