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 up the Vltava to Hradcany; Riverside Buildings (?at Düsseldorf) 1835

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Prague: View up the Vltava to Hradcany; Riverside Buildings (?at Düsseldorf)’ 1835
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 99 Recto:
Prague: View up the Vltava to Hradcany; Riverside Buildings (?at Düsseldorf) 1835
D30817
Turner Bequest CCCIV 99
Pencil on cream laid paper, 118 x 190 mm
Watermark ‘[jan honig] & | zonen’
Inscribed in pencil by Turner ‘Str[...]’ top left; ‘[...]’ [?Dussel’ bottom left (inverted)
Inscribed in red ink by Ruskin ‘99’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCCIV–99’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
In this sketch Turner depicts the Hradcany district of Prague. The imperial Castle and Cathedral of St Vitus can be seen in the distance at centre, surrounded by fortifications. To the left of St Vitus are two towers which mark out Strahov Monastery, an abbey founded in the twelfth century. Turner has inscribed ‘Str[...]’ above it.
At bottom left is a rough drawing of a river scene, orientated inversely to the sketch of Prague. The inscription ‘Dussel’ suggests Turner has recorded Düsseldorf on the Rhine.
Verso:
Blank.

Alice Rylance-Watson
December 2015

How to cite

Alice Rylance-Watson, ‘Prague: View up the Vltava to Hradcany; Riverside Buildings (?at Düsseldorf) 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-up-the-vltava-to-hradcany-riverside-buildings-at-r1187192, accessed 25 April 2024.