J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1802-18 Academician and professor > Perspective lectures c.1809-28 > Perspective Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Diagrams of a Cube and Squares Projected in Perspective, after Salomon de Caus c.1809

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Diagrams of a Cube and Squares Projected in Perspective, after Salomon de Caus’ c.1809
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 4 Verso:
Diagrams of a Cube and Squares Projected in Perspective, after Salomon de Caus circa 1809
D07362
Turner Bequest CVIII 4a
Pen and ink on white wove paper, 88 x 115 mm
Inscribed by Turner in ink (see main catalogue entry) at various points on and in relation to the diagrams
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The diagrams are labelled to the left of centre as ‘Du Cas | 1612’, and the squares and cube have various initial capital letters (‘A’, ‘B’, ‘C’, ‘D’, etc.) at their corners, with other letters (‘T’ and ‘X’) along a horizon line towards the top and at various vanishing points and intersections (‘L’, ‘M’, ‘N’, and ‘O’).
Maurice Davies has identified the notes and diagrams on folios 3 recto to 4 verso (D07359–D07361 and the present page) as taken from Salomon de Caus, La Perspective avec la raison des ombres et miroirs, London 1612 (see also folio 54 verso; D07450), in this case from unpaginated folio 42 verso. The same passages are translated from the French in Turner’s perspective lecture manuscripts, though apparently not in his hand.1

Matthew Imms
June 2008

1
Davies 1994, pp.98, 287, 298 note 23; Davies notes the translations as in Turner, ‘Royal Academy Lectures’, circa 1807–38, Department of Western Manuscripts, British Library, London, ADD MS 46151 BB folios 62 recto, verso.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Diagrams of a Cube and Squares Projected in Perspective, after Salomon de Caus c.1809 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, June 2008, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2012, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-diagrams-of-a-cube-and-squares-projected-in-perspective-r1136557, accessed 26 April 2024.