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 Optics and Bibliographical Notes on Perspective Sources c.1809

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Inscription by Turner: Notes on Optics and Bibliographical Notes on Perspective Sources’ c.1809
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 12 Verso:
Inscription by Turner: Notes on Optics and Bibliographical Notes on Perspective Sources circa 1809
D07377
Turner Bequest CVIII 12a
Pen and ink on white wove paper, 88 x 115 mm
Inscribed by Turner in ink (see main catalogue entry) at top
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The following note runs along the top of the page:
Du Cas. [?May ...] water make it by | the [?visuary] rays by the [?ration] S.
Andrea
Alberti 1671
Maurice Davies has suggested that ‘Andrea’ is a reference to Andrea Pozzo, the Italian painter, architect and writer on perspective (1642–1709).1 Alternatively, the name may have been inserted to qualify the next line, apparently a reference to Andreas Albrecht, Andreæ Alberti duo libri, prior de perspectiva ... posterior de umbra, Nuremberg 1671, a copy of which Turner could have consulted at the British Museum (since transferred to the British Library).
For Turner’s notes from de Caus [sic], see folios 3 verso, 4 recto and verso, 7 verso and 54 verso (D07359–D07361, D07367, D07450).

Matthew Imms
June 2008

1
Davies 1994, p.288; see Richard Bösel, ‘Pozzo [Puteus], Andrea’, Grove Art Online, accessed 4 April 2008, http://www.oxfordartonline.com.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Inscription by Turner: Notes on Optics and 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-inscription-by-turner-notes-on-optics-and-bibliographical-r1136572, accessed 23 April 2024.