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 > II. Various Perspective Diagrams > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Lecture Diagram: Perspective Representation of a Row of Pillars and a Column Parallel and Close to the Picture Plane c.1810

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Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Lecture Diagram: Perspective Representation of a Row of Pillars and a Column Parallel and Close to the Picture Plane circa 1810
D17117
Turner Bequest CXCV 146
Pencil and watercolour on white wove paper, 780 x 1332 mm
Watermarked ‘JAMES WHATMAN TURKEY MILL KENT 1809’
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘146’ top right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This diagram of a perspective representation of a row of pillars and one column was made in connection with Turner’s lectures as Professor of Perspective at the Royal Academy. Although not numbered by Turner, as were the diagrams presented during the lectures, it clearly forms a part of his ongoing discussion in Lecture 2 of the problems of standard perspective, as Maurice Davies observes.1 Like Diagram 25 (Tate D17039; Turner Bequest CXCV 69), it is loosely based on illustrations from Bernard Lamy’s Perspective Made Easie (1710, pls.20 and 21), but is primarily Turner’s own design.22
1
Turner, ‘Royal Academy Lectures’, circa 1807–38, Department of Western Manuscripts, British Library, London, ADD MS 46151 D folios 7,8 and L folio 13 recto.
2
Davies 1992, p.41.
Technical notes:
Peter Bower states that the sheet is Antiquarian size Whatman paper. He notes elsewhere that it was produced long after James Whatman’s death in 1798 and, although the watermark states otherwise, was probably made by William Balston at Springfield Mill rather than the Hollingworth Brothers at Turkey Mill.
Verso:
Blank, save for inscriptions by an unknown hand in red ink ‘146’ top left and in pencil ‘40’ bottom right

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: Perspective Representation of a Row of Pillars and a Column Parallel and Close to the Picture Plane 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-perspective-representation-of-a-row-of-r1136760, accessed 23 April 2024.