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 Diagram of a Perspective Method for a Cube, after Pietro Accolti c.1809

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Diagram of a Perspective Method for a Cube, after Pietro Accolti’ c.1809
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 46 Verso:
Diagram of a Perspective Method for a Cube, after Pietro Accolti circa 1809
D07434
Turner Bequest CVIII 46a
Pen and ink on white wove paper, 88 x 115 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The diagram is not annotated. Maurice Davies has identified it as taken from Pietro Accolti, Lo Inganno de gl’occi, prospettiva pratica, Florence 1625, page 46, observing that Turner ‘never seems to be clear about what is shown’.1 He probably consulted the copy at the British Museum (since transferred to the British Library, London). The perspective lecture diagram based on this drawing (Tate D17046; Turner Bequest CXCV 76) is inaccurately labelled ‘ACCOLOTTI’ and ‘1643’.2
There is another version of this diagram on folio 45 verso (D07432), and a further diagram from the same source on folio 80 verso (D07489).

Matthew Imms
June 2008

1
Davies 1994, pp.288, 92.
2
Ibid., p.309 note 62.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Diagram of a Perspective Method for a Cube, after Pietro Accolti 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-diagram-of-a-perspective-method-for-a-cube-after-pietro-r1136630, accessed 25 April 2024.