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: View down the Vltava and across to the Old Town 1835

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Prague: View down the Vltava and across to the Old Town’ 1835
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 79 Verso:
Prague: View down the Vltava and across to the Old Town 1835
D30782
Turner Bequest CCCIV 79 a
Pencil on cream laid paper, 118 x 190 mm
Watermark ‘[z]onen’
Inscribed in pencil by Turner ‘[...]’ top right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This view was taken in the Little Quarter of Prague. Turner looks in the direction of Charles Bridge towards the Old Town. The Old Town Bridge Tower can be seen as well as the dome of St Francis’s Church to its immediate left. The spires and towers of other churches rise up above the rooftops, including St Saviour’s, St Nicholas’ and the Church of Our Lady Before Týn in the distance.
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: View down the Vltava and across to the Old Town 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-view-down-the-vltava-and-across-to-the-old-town-r1187157, accessed 21 August 2025.