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: Anamorphic Perspective c.1817-28

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Lecture Diagram: Anamorphic Perspective’ c.1817-28
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Lecture Diagram: Anamorphic Perspective circa 1817–28
D16988
Turner Bequest CXCV 19
Pencil and watercolour on white wove paper, 489 x 697 mm
Watermarked ‘J WHATMAN | TURKEY MILLS | 1817’
Inscribed by Turner in pencil various numbers within diagram
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘19’ 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 (possibly unfinished?) is related to two others (Tate D17106, D17107; Turner Bequest CXCV 135, 136) illustrating anamorphic perspective. This method produces a distorted image that appears in natural form only when viewed at a special angle or reflected from a curved mirror.
Technical notes:
Peter Bower (unpublished notes)1 writes that the sheet is Super Royal size Whatman made by Finch and Thomas Robert Hollingworth, at Turkey Mill, Maidstone, Kent. This group ‘show both very good sheets as well as some outside, or retree, sheets where the “back” of the sheet, size spots and streaking, and formation shadows are visible’. Finberg incorrectly gives the watermark as ‘J. Whatman. Turkey Mill, 1823’.
1
Notes in Tate catalogue files.
Verso:
Blank, save for an inscription by an unknown hand in pencil ‘47’ 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: Anamorphic Perspective 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-anamorphic-perspective-r1136789, accessed 26 April 2024.