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 ... > Copenhagen to Dresden Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Sketches of Three Women; Berlin: View Westwards along the Spree to the Waisenbrücke and Waisenhauskirche 1835

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Sketches of Three Women; Berlin: View Westwards along the Spree to the Waisenbrücke and Waisenhauskirche’ 1835
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 30 Verso
Sketches of Three Women; Berlin: View Westwards along the Spree to the Waisenbrücke and Waisenhauskirche 1835
D31081
Turner Bequest CCCVII 31 a
Pencil on cream laid paper, 89 x 162 mm
Watermark ‘cfw & s’
Inscribed in pencil by Turner ‘Yell’, ‘v’, ‘Blue’, ‘Pink’, ‘[...]’ top centre and left against figures
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Here Turner depicts Berlin, looking along the River Spree in a westerly direction towards the Waisenbrücke and Waisenhauskirche(the Orphan’s Bridge and Church of the Orphanage). The artist has also recorded some local women, inscribing the colours of their dress: ‘Yell’, ‘v’, ‘Blue’, ‘Pink’.
For other sketches of Berlin see Tate D21045–D31082; Turner Bequest CCCVII 13a–32.

Alice Rylance-Watson
May 2015

How to cite

Alice Rylance-Watson, ‘Sketches of Three Women; Berlin: View Westwards along the Spree to the Waisenbrücke and Waisenhauskirche 1835 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, May 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-sketches-of-three-women-berlin-view-westwards-along-the-r1186954, accessed 05 April 2026.