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 > IV. Diagrams after John Joshua Kirby's ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Lecture Diagram: A Method for Determining the Height of the Eye when Preparing a Picture c.1818-28

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Lecture Diagram: A Method for Determining the Height of the Eye when Preparing a Picture’ c.1818-28
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Lecture Diagram: A Method for Determining the Height of the Eye when Preparing a Picture circa 1818–28
D16974
Turner Bequest CXCV 5
Pencil and watercolour on white wove paper, 585 x 700 mm
Watermarked ‘1818 | J WHATMAN | TURKEY MILLS’
Inscribed by Turner in red watercolour ‘Fig 1 | Kirby’ bottom right and in black watercolour over pencil with various initial letters within diagram
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘5’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Prepared in connection with his lectures as Professor of Perspective at the Royal Academy, Turner’s diagram is based on a plate from Dr Brook Taylor’s Method of Perspective Made Easy; both in Theory and Practice: in Two Books (London 1768, vol.II, pl.II, fig.1) by John Joshua Kirby (1716–74). Kirby used it to describe a method for determining the height of the eye when preparing a picture.1 Turner’s diagram corresponds to a section in his lecture notes containing discussion of a wide variety of methods of perspective, which Maurice Davies considers to be the late, extended version of Turner’s history of techniques.2
1
Kirby 1768, Book II, p.5.
2
Turner, ‘Royal Academy Lectures’, circa 1807–38, Department of Western Manuscripts, British Library, London, ADD MS 46151 AA folios 5 verso–6.
Technical notes:
Peter Bower writes that the sheet is Elephant size Whatman paper made by Finch and Thomas Robert Hollingworth, at Turkey Mill, Maidstone, Kent.1
1
Notes in Tate Catalogue files.
Verso:
Blank, save for an inscription by an unknown hand in pencil ‘32’ 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: A Method for Determining the Height of the Eye when Preparing a Picture c.1818–28 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-a-method-for-determining-the-height-of-the-r1136742, accessed 25 April 2024.