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 from Letná Hill to Petrín Hill and the Little Quarter with St Nicholas's Church in the Middle Ground 1835

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Prague: View from Letná Hill to Petrín Hill and the Little Quarter with St Nicholas's Church in the Middle Ground’ 1835
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 26 Verso:
Prague: View from Letná Hill to Petrín Hill and the Little Quarter with St Nicholas's Church in the Middle Ground 1835
D30347
Turner Bequest CCCI 26 a
Pencil on cream wove paper, 100 x 159 mm
Partial Watermark ‘af’
Inscribed in pencil by Turner ‘C Nostitz Nostowitz’ top left
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This is a view of the Little Quarter in Prague, taken from a vantage point on Letná hill. The baroque dome and tower of St Nicholas’ Church (one of three dedicated to the saint in Prague) can be seen in the middle ground, adjacent to St Thomas’s which is marked out by its tapering spire. Petrín Hill rises above the Little Quarter, and part of its medieval defence wall (known as the Hunger Wall) is visible, as well as the twin baroque towers of a seminary. The inscription ‘C Nostitz Nostowitz’ written at top left refers to Nostitz Palace, a baroque mansion which was once the residence of the noble Nostitz-Reineck family. The Palace is located in the historic Little Quarter of Prague.
This sketch is one part of a panoramic survey of the city rendered across three pages (see Tate D30346, D30348; Turner Bequest CCCI 26, 27).

Alice Rylance-Watson
September 2015

How to cite

Alice Rylance-Watson, ‘Prague: View from Letná Hill to Petrín Hill and the Little Quarter with St Nicholas's Church in the Middle Ground 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-from-letna-hill-to-petrin-hill-and-the-little-r1186731, accessed 20 September 2024.