J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1830-35 Annual tourist > Northern Germany, the Elbe and Prague ... > Copenhagen to Dresden Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Dresden: The Monument to General Moreau at Räcknitz, with the City in the Background; The Helmet on the Monument and Distant Hills 1835

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Dresden: The Monument to General Moreau at Räcknitz, with the City in the Background; The Helmet on the Monument and Distant Hills’ 1835
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 7 Recto
Dresden: The Monument to General Moreau at Räcknitz, with the City in the Background; The Helmet on the Monument and Distant Hills 1835
D31034
Turner Bequest CCCVII 8
Pencil on cream laid paper, 89 x 162 mm
Watermarked with a beehive surrounded by garlands and bees
Inscribed in pencil by Turner ‘moreau | der held | fiel hier an der seite | alexanders | den xxvii august | mdcccxiii 3’ top centre
Inscribed in red ink by Ruskin ‘8’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCCVII–8’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This is a prospect of the Prussian city of Dresden, taken from Räcknitz. The dome of the Frauenkirche can be seen, with the spire of the Kreuzkirche, Dresden Castle and Cathedral. In the foreground a group of figures gather around the monument to General Jean-Victor Moreau (1763–1813), supposedly erected on the spot where he died in the Battle of Dresden (August 1813). The Frenchman fought against Napoleon, on the side of the Sixth Coalition (Prussia, Austria, Russia).
Turner has transcribed one of the inscriptions on the monument reading: ‘moreau | der held | fiel hier an der seite | alexanders | den xxvii august | mdcccxiii 3’ (‘moreau, the hero, died here by the side of alexander, 27 august 1818’). A roman helmet on top of the plinth is rendered at top left.
For more sketches of Dresden see Tate D30296–D30303, D30896–D30900, D31024–D31042; Turner Bequest CCCI 1–7, CCCVI 6a–9, CCCVII 3–12.

Alice Rylance-Watson
May 2015

How to cite

Alice Rylance-Watson, ‘Dresden: The Monument to General Moreau at Räcknitz, with the City in the Background; The Helmet on the Monument and Distant Hills 1835 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, May 2015, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, August 2017, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-dresden-the-monument-to-general-moreau-at-racknitz-with-the-r1186907, accessed 26 April 2024.