Joseph Mallord William Turner

Inscription by Turner: Notes on Optics and Bibliographical Notes on Perspective Sources

c.1809

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In Tate Britain

Prints and Drawings Room

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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
D07377
Turner Bequest CVIII 12 a

Catalogue entry

The following note runs along the top of the page:
Du Cas. [?May ...] water make it by | the [?visuary] rays by the [?ration] S.
Andrea
Alberti 1671
Maurice Davies has suggested that ‘Andrea’ is a reference to Andrea Pozzo, the Italian painter, architect and writer on perspective (1642–1709).1 Alternatively, the name may have been inserted to qualify the next line, apparently a reference to Andreas Albrecht, Andreæ Alberti duo libri, prior de perspectiva ... posterior de umbra, Nuremberg 1671, a copy of which Turner could have consulted at the British Museum (since transferred to the British Library).
For Turner’s notes from de Caus [sic], see folios 3 verso, 4 recto and verso, 7 verso and 54 verso (D07359–D07361, D07367, D07450).

Matthew Imms
June 2008

1
Davies 1994, p.288; see Richard Bösel, ‘Pozzo [Puteus], Andrea’, Grove Art Online, accessed 4 April 2008, http://www.oxfordartonline.com.

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