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 > V. Miscellaneous Preparatory Perspective ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Perspective Study of a Corinthian Entablature c.1810

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Perspective Study of a Corinthian Entablature’ c.1810
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Perspective Study of a Corinthian Entablature circa 1810
D17080
Turner Bequest CXCV 110
Pencil, pen and ink and watercolour on white wove paper, 544 x 380 mm
Watermarked ‘J WHATMAN’
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘110’ top right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This perspective construction of a Corinthian entablature is partly based on diagrams from John Joshua Kirby’s The Perspective of Architecture (1761, pl.XXVII, fig.B and pl.XXIX, fig.B). Turner does not seem to have developed the pen and wash drawing into a full-scale diagram for his lectures as Professor of Perspective at the Royal Academy. However, Maurice Davies relates the subject to Turner’s discussion of the problems of circles in standard perspective, where the artist refers to the Corinthian capital and particularly to the crushed appearance of the entablature.
Technical notes:
Peter Bower states that the sheet is Imperial size paper made by James Whatman the younger at Turkey Mill, Maidstone, Kent.1
1
Notes in Tate catalogue files.
Verso:
Blank, save for an inscription by an unknown hand in pencil ‘105’ top left

Andrea Fredericksen
June 2004

Supported by The Samuel H. Kress Foundation

Revised by David Blayney Brown
January 2012

How to cite

Andrea Fredericksen, ‘Perspective Study of a Corinthian Entablature c.1810 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, June 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-perspective-study-of-a-corinthian-entablature-r1136806, accessed 25 April 2024.