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 Prague: View on the Charles Bridge Looking towards St Francis's Church and Bridge Tower 1835

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Prague: View on the Charles Bridge Looking towards St Francis's Church and Bridge Tower’ 1835
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 33 Verso:
Prague: View on the Charles Bridge Looking towards St Francis's Church and Bridge Tower 1835
D30361
Turner Bequest CCCI 33 a
Pencil on cream wove paper, 100 x 159 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This detailed sketch of Prague was taken from the Charles Bridge, built in the fifteenth century under the auspices of Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV. In the foreground at left is a line of statues, each of a saint. The gothic bridge tower, heralding the entrance to the Old Town, is at centre. To the left of the gateway is the domed Church of Saint Francis and to the right, a tower of one of the city’s former water mills.
Other drawings of Prague can be found at Tate D30344–D30361, D30364–D30366; Turner Bequest CCCI 25–33a, 36–37. The Prague, Nuremberg, Frankfurt and Rhine sketchbook of the same tour holds drawings of the city at 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.

Alice Rylance-Watson
September 2015

How to cite

Alice Rylance-Watson, ‘Prague: View on the Charles Bridge Looking towards St Francis's Church and Bridge Tower 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-prague-view-on-the-charles-bridge-looking-towards-st-r1186745, accessed 29 June 2025.