Joseph Mallord William Turner

Made in connection with Turner’s lectures as Professor of Perspective at the Royal Academy, this diagram is based on an illustration from A Compleat Treatise on Perspective in Theory and Practice on the True Principles of Dr Brook Taylor (1775, pl.XXII, fig.104) [on right]) by the elder Thomas Malton (1726–1801). There is a small pencil sketch of a column base at the bottom left of sheet. Indications of Turner’s transfer process on the back suggest that he used the diagram to trace the guiding lines for Diagrams 72 and 73 (Tate 17096, D17097; Turner Bequest CXCV 125, 126). For another rendering of an Ionic capital after Malton see Tate D17078; Turner Bequest CXCV 108.

Technical notes:

Peter Bower states that the sheet is Double Elephant size Whatman paper made by William Balston, at Springfield Mill, Maidstone, Kent.1

Verso:

See Tate D40009.