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

Diagram 65 is one of three views of a prison interior prepared by Turner for his lectures as Professor of Perspective at the Royal Academy, from an etching by Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720–1778) in his Prima Parte de Architettura e Prospettive (1743, pl.2); see also Diagrams 66 and 75 (Tate D17091, D17099; Turner Bequest CXCV 121, 128). They are associated by Maurice Davies with a large group of diagrams illustrating the production of shadows; see note to Diagram 60 (Tate D17085; Turner Bequest CXCV 115). Turner refers to a ‘prison drawing’ in a manuscript titled ‘Lecture upon light, shade and reflexes’1 but it is not clear which one this is.

Piranesi’s images of fantastic prisons exerted a powerful influence on the Romantic imagination, the writer Thomas De Quincey even attributing them to the use of opium – a supposition now generally rejected. In fact, they combined elements familiar from Roman baroque stage design with Piranesi’s interest in the possibilities of masonry engineering and construction, the result of his early training in Venice. Turner, along with his early friend Thomas Girtin, is known to have studied or copied works by Piranesi in the collection of John Henderson; a copy attributed to Turner of the famous ‘Dark Prison’ (Carcere oscura con antenna nel supplizio de’ malfatori) is in the Metropolitan Museum, New York.2 While preparing his Academy lectures, Turner’s interest was refreshed by his friend John Soane, the Professor of Architecture, with whom he shared a critical admiration for the Venetian artist. As well as the prisons, Turner referred to his prints of Roman columns and probably to drawings by him of the Temple of Neptune at Paestum belonging to Soane for his lecture illustrations (Tate D17123, D17124, D17072; Turner Bequest CXCV 152, 153, 102).

Verso:

Blank, save for an inscription in red watercolour ‘65’ top left and by an unknown hand in pencil ‘115’ bottom left