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 Dresden: View across the Elbe to the Kreuzkirche, Frauenkirche, Schloss, Hofkirche and Bridge 1835

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Dresden: View across the Elbe to the Kreuzkirche, Frauenkirche, Schloss, Hofkirche and Bridge’ 1835
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 5 Recto:
Dresden: View across the Elbe to the Kreuzkirche, Frauenkirche, Schloss, Hofkirche and Bridge 1835
D30304
Turner Bequest CCCI 5
Pencil on cream wove paper, 100 x 159 mm
Partial Watermark ‘af’
Inscribed in red ink by Ruskin ‘5’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCCI – 5’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Here Turner has drawn the city of Dresden in profile, perhaps in the evening given the presence of the small crescent in the sky at centre. The spires of Dresden’s principal buildings are marked out swiftly from left to right: the Kreuzkirche, the domed Frauenkirche, the Schloss and Hofkirche. A small group of riverboats is seen at left, their masts rendered in single vertical strokes of pencil. The same vertical lines have been used to evoke reflections on the River Elbe.
For more sketches of Dresden see Tate D30296–D30308, D30896–D30900, D31013, D31024–D31042; Turner Bequest CCCI 1–7, CCCVI 6a–9, 65a, CCCVII 3–12.

Alice Rylance-Watson
September 2015

How to cite

Alice Rylance-Watson, ‘Dresden: View across the Elbe to the Kreuzkirche, Frauenkirche, Schloss, Hofkirche and Bridge 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-dresden-view-across-the-elbe-to-the-kreuzkirche-frauenkirche-r1186688, accessed 25 April 2024.