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 Inscription by Turner: Notes on Sculptural Proportion and Perspective, from an Unidentified Source c.1809

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Inscription by Turner: Notes on Sculptural Proportion and Perspective, from an Unidentified Source’ c.1809
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 35 Verso:
Inscription by Turner: Notes on Sculptural Proportion and Perspective, from an Unidentified Source circa 1809
D07412
Turner Bequest CVIII 35a
Pen and ink on white wove paper, 88 x 115 mm
Inscribed by Turner in ink (see main catalogue entry)
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The whole page is taken up with the following notes:
any ideas of Perspective arrangements | and is [...]ing in the Adoption of Antinus | to the Apostle St Peter squat ins[...] | and must have appeared [?just] off [?half] | way of the hieght of the plinth for [?Trajan] | was necessary to give it the a[...] | of grandieur, the Church of [...] | Cherubim is another instance of the | adoptation of parts in all [...] | without considering the whole that | the Cupola even from its base
The source of these passages on proportion in relation to architecture (including the Trajan and Antonine Columns in Rome) remains unidentified.1 Trajan’s Column also features in Turner’s notes on folios 34 recto, 35 recto, 36 verso, 37 recto, 37 verso and 61 verso (D07409, D07411, D07414–D07416, D07459); see also the entry for folio 33 verso (D07408). The Antonine Column is mentioned again on folios 35 recto and 37 verso; the present notes run continuously between those two pages (D07411–D07416).

Matthew Imms
June 2008

1
Davies 1994, p.288.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Inscription by Turner: Notes on Sculptural Proportion and Perspective, from an Unidentified Source 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-inscription-by-turner-notes-on-sculptural-proportion-and-r1136608, accessed 09 June 2025.