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 across the Charles Bridge to the Petrín Hill and Hradcany, with Figures next to the Crucifix on the Right 1835

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Prague: View across the Charles Bridge to the Petrín Hill and Hradcany, with Figures next to the Crucifix on the Right’ 1835
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 30 Verso:
Prague: View across the Charles Bridge to the Petrín Hill and Hradcany, with Figures next to the Crucifix on the Right 1835
D30355
Turner Bequest CCCI 30 a
Pencil on cream wove paper, 100 x 159 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This is a view of Prague’s Charles Bridge, taken from a vantage point looking towards Petrín Hill (left) and the Hradcany (right). With loose and cursory handling, Turner has drawn some of the thirty statues of saints mounted atop plinths at either side of the Bridge. Particularly celebrated within the scheme is a sculptural group representing Christ on the cross at Calvary, with the mourning Virgin Mary and St John at either side. The Crucifix is rendered in the foreground at right, with figures gathered around it.
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 across the Charles Bridge to the Petrín Hill and Hradcany, with Figures next to the Crucifix on the Right 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-across-the-charles-bridge-to-the-petrin-hill-and-r1186739, accessed 20 April 2024.