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: A Method of Putting a Cube in Perspective, after Salomon de Caus; with Bibliographical Notes on Perspective Sources c.1809

Image 1 of 2
  • Enhanced image
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Diagrams: A Method of Putting a Cube in Perspective, after Salomon de Caus; with Bibliographical Notes on Perspective Sources’ c.1809
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 7 Verso:
Diagrams: A Method of Putting a Cube in Perspective, after Salomon de Caus; with Bibliographical Notes on Perspective Sources circa 1809
D07367
Turner Bequest CVIII 7a
Pencil and pen and ink on white wove paper, 88 x 115 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil (see main catalogue entry) from top of page
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The top half of the page is taken up with the following perspective-related notes for future reference:
to look after Stephano Florentino
Do. [i.e. ‘ditto’] at 1505 for a square
Do. at Lamazzio. see if Lamatius is [‘the same person’, running onto the opposite page (folio 8 recto; D07368)]
Do. Du Cas – square is wanting
For a longer note on Stefano Fiorentino, see folio 5 verso (D07364). As Maurice Davies has noted, ‘1505’ refers to Viator (Jean Pélerin), De Artificiali Perspectiva, published in that year1 (see entry for folio 27 recto; D07396). Lamazzio and Lamatius seem to be variations on the name of Giovanni Paolo Lomazzo, extensive passages of whose 1598 Tracte Turner copied elsewhere in the present book (see the sketchbook Introduction).
Davies has identified the two variant diagrams in ink below as a demonstration of how to show a cube in perspective, taken from Salomon de Caus, La Perspective avec la raison des ombres et miroirs, London 1612, ‘Chapitre Deuxiesme’ (unpaginated), which Turner copied again on folio 54 verso (D07450), though without noting the method involved.2

Matthew Imms
June 2008

1
Davies 1994, p.88
2
Ibid., pp.98, 287, 308 note 56, 310 note 77

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Diagrams: A Method of Putting a Cube in Perspective, after Salomon de Caus; with Bibliographical Notes on Perspective Sources 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-a-method-of-putting-a-cube-in-perspective-after-r1136562, accessed 19 April 2024.