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 ... > Prague, Nuremberg, Frankfurt and Rhine ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Prague: The City and the Prospect down the Vltava, from Petrín Hill, with St Lawrence's Church on the Left 1835

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Prague: The City and the Prospect down the Vltava, from Petrín Hill, with St Lawrence's Church on the Left’ 1835
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 74 Recto:
Prague: The City and the Prospect down the Vltava, from Petrín Hill, with St Lawrence's Church on the Left 1835
D30771
Turner Bequest CCCIV 74
Pencil on cream laid paper, 118 x 190 mm
Watermark ‘[jh]&z’
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This is a view of Prague, taken from Petrín Hill. From this vantage point Turner was afforded an expansive prospect of the city’s Old Town and Lesser Quarter, and of the Vltava River flowing through its centre. The Charles Bridge has been swiftly marked out, with the domed Church of St Nicholas to its left and a medieval tower to its right, heralding the entrance to the Old Town. St Lawrence, a baroque church situated atop Petrín Hill, can be seen in the foreground at left.
Turner produced several views of Prague on the 1835 tour. For other drawings in this sketchbook Tate D30759–30761, D30764–D30765, D30767, D30771–D30773, D30775–D30777, D30779–D30783, D30788–D30790, D30792–D30803, D30805, D30807–D30811, D30813–D30820; Turner Bequest CCCIV 68–69, 70a–71, 72, 74–75, 76–77, 78–80, 82a–84, 85–91, 92, 93–96, 97–102. See also the Dresden, Tepliz and Prague sketchbook (Tate D30344–D30361, D30364–D30366; Turner Bequest CCCI 25–33a, 36–37).

Alice Rylance-Watson
December 2015

How to cite

Alice Rylance-Watson, ‘Prague: The City and the Prospect down the Vltava, from Petrín Hill, with St Lawrence's Church on the Left 1835 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, December 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-prague-the-city-and-the-prospect-down-the-vltava-from-petrin-r1187146, accessed 26 April 2024.