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
Part of: I. Numbered Perspective Diagrams
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

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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