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 ... > Dresden, Teplitz and Prague Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner German and Deutsche Kurrent Phrases Inscribed by Turner and Another 1835

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘German and Deutsche Kurrent Phrases Inscribed by Turner and Another’ 1835
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 40 Verso:
German and Deutsche Kurrent Phrases Inscribed by Turner and Another 1835
D30373
Turner Bequest CCCI 40 a
Pencil on cream wove paper, 159 x 100 mm
Inscribed in pencil by Turner and another hand with phrases in German and Deutsche Kurrent (transcribed in full in the main catalogue entry)
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This page has been inscribed with phrases and vocabulary in German and Deutsche Kurrent (a form of old German script based on late medieval cursive writing). With the exception of the final three lines, the inscriptions are not in Turner’s hand and are in Deutsche Kurrent. They are translated thus:
‘Ich will ein Platz bis
 Toplitz
Kann ich [...] mit
[...] oder
[...]?
[...] den [...]
Post [...] auf
Prag ab.
Shorn – Handsome
Thüre Thor Gate
Motte Todt Wall’
Other sketchbooks used during the 1835 tour of Germany and Bohemia feature pages inscribed with useful phrases and vocabulary both in German and Kurrent, with translations in English. The first line of this set of phrases (‘Ich will ein Platz bis Toplitz’) translates as ‘I want a seat to Teplitz’, which Turner no doubt would have have read out or shown to gain admission on the carriage service from Dresden to Teplitz. See also Tate D30888–D30889, D31020–D31026, D41211, D41212; Turner Bequest CCCVI 1–1a, CCCVII 1–4 for more examples.

Alice Rylance-Watson
September 2015

How to cite

Alice Rylance-Watson, ‘German and Deutsche Kurrent Phrases Inscribed by Turner and Another 1835 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, September 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-german-and-deutsche-kurrent-phrases-inscribed-by-turner-and-r1186757, accessed 15 May 2025.