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 > II. Various Perspective Diagrams > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Lecture Diagram: Two Octagons c.1817-28

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Lecture Diagram: Two Octagons’ c.1817-28
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Lecture Diagram: Two Octagons circa 1817–28
D17001
Turner Bequest CXCV 31
Pencil and watercolour on white wove paper, 672 x 1000 mm
Watermarked ‘1794 | J WHATMAN’
Inscribed by Turner in red watercolour ‘Octagon’ bottom centre
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘31’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Made in connection with Turner’s lectures as Professor of Perspective at the Royal Academy, this diagram of two octagons, one in a circle and the other in a square, may have been used in his later lectures on geometry.
Technical notes:
Peter Bower (unpublished notes)1 writes that the sheet is Double Elephant size Whatman paper made by William Balston and Finch and Thomas Robert Hollingworth, at Turkey Mill, Maidstone, Kent. Bower notes that ‘all of the group of papers with 1794 dates in the watermark show considerable process dirt and poor formation. Perhaps this lack of quality control at Turkey Mill was the result of the disruption caused by James Whatman’s stroke and the change of ownership at the mill’.
1
Notes in Tate catalogue files.
Verso:
Blank, save for an inscription by an unknown hand in pencil ‘17’ bottom left.

Andrea Fredericksen
January 2004

Supported by The Samuel H. Kress Foundation

Revised by David Blayney Brown
January 2012

How to cite

Andrea Fredericksen, ‘Lecture Diagram: Two Octagons c.1817–28 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, January 2004, revised by David Blayney Brown, January 2012, 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-lecture-diagram-two-octagons-r1136783, accessed 26 April 2024.