Joseph Mallord William Turner

Lecture Diagram: Perspective Construction of an Ionic Capital

c.1810

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In Tate Britain

Prints and Drawings Room

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Artist
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Part of
II. Various Perspective Diagrams
Medium
Graphite and watercolour on paper
Dimensions
Support: 671 x 1004 mm
Collection
Tate
Acquisition
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Reference
D17098
Turner Bequest CXCV 127

Catalogue entry

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
1
Notes in Tate catalogue files.
Verso:
See Tate D40009.

Andrea Fredericksen
June 2004

Supported by The Samuel H. Kress Foundation

Revised by David Blayney Brown
January 2012

Read full Catalogue entry

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