Joseph Mallord William Turner

Diagrams of a Cube and Squares Projected in Perspective, after Salomon de Caus

c.1809

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In Tate Britain

Prints and Drawings Room

View by appointment
Artist
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Part of
Perspective Sketchbook
Medium
Pen and ink on paper
Dimensions
Support: 88 × 115 mm
Collection
Tate
Acquisition
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Reference
D07362
Turner Bequest CVIII 4 a

Catalogue entry

The diagrams are labelled to the left of centre as ‘Du Cas | 1612’, and the squares and cube have various initial capital letters (‘A’, ‘B’, ‘C’, ‘D’, etc.) at their corners, with other letters (‘T’ and ‘X’) along a horizon line towards the top and at various vanishing points and intersections (‘L’, ‘M’, ‘N’, and ‘O’).
Maurice Davies has identified the notes and diagrams on folios 3 recto to 4 verso (D07359–D07361 and the present page) as taken from Salomon de Caus, La Perspective avec la raison des ombres et miroirs, London 1612 (see also folio 54 verso; D07450), in this case from unpaginated folio 42 verso. The same passages are translated from the French in Turner’s perspective lecture manuscripts, though apparently not in his hand.1

Matthew Imms
June 2008

1
Davies 1994, pp.98, 287, 298 note 23; Davies notes the translations as in Turner, ‘Royal Academy Lectures’, circa 1807–38, Department of Western Manuscripts, British Library, London, ADD MS 46151 BB folios 62 recto, verso.

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