Joseph Mallord William Turner

Lecture Diagram 75: Interior of a Prison

c.1810

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Not on display

Artist
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Medium
Pen and ink and watercolour on paper
Dimensions
Support: 710 x 510 mm
Collection
Tate
Acquisition
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Reference
D17099
Turner Bequest CXCV 128

Catalogue entry

Prepared by Turner for his lectures as Professor of Perspective at the Royal Academy, Diagram 66 is one of three views of a prison interior based on an etching from Piranesi’s Prima Parte de Architettura e Prospettiva (1743, pl.2). See especially note to Diagram 65 (Tate D17090; Turner Bequest CXCV 120) for their likely connection with illustrations of the production of shadows and with a lecture manuscript. The third prison is Diagram 66 (Tate D17901; Turner Bequest CXCV 121).
For other references to Piranesi among the lecture diagrams see Tate D17123, D17124, D17072; Turner Bequest CXCV 152, 153, 102.
Technical notes:
Peter Bower states that the sheet is Imperial size paper made by John Hayes and John Wise, at Padsole Mill, Maidstone, Kent.1
1
Notes in Tate catalogue files.
Verso:
Blank, save for inscription by unknown hands ‘122’ bottom left and ‘CXCV – 128 | POGTF L3(1)’ top right.

Andrea Fredericksen
June 2004

Supported by The Samuel H. Kress Foundation

Revised by David Blayney Brown
January 2012

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