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: The West End of the Charles Bridge Looking towards St Nicholas's Church and the Bridge Towers 1835

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Prague: The West End of the Charles Bridge Looking towards St Nicholas's Church and the Bridge Towers’ 1835
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 31 Recto:
Prague: The West End of the Charles Bridge Looking towards St Nicholas's Church and the Bridge Towers 1835
D30356
Turner Bequest CCCI 31
Pencil on cream wove paper, 100 x 159 mm
Partial Watermark ‘cf’
Inscribed in red ink by Ruskin ‘31’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCCI – 31’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Here Turner depicts the Charles Bridge in the Lesser Quarter of Prague, capital of Bohemia. Figures walking under the wide arch of the bridge have been dashed off in the foreground. Statues of saints mounted on plinths can be seen on the west side of the bridge, including what appears to be the sculptural group representing the Crucifixion shown on the folio opposite (Tate D30355; Turner Bequest CCCI 30a). Two of the gothic towers guarding the Lesser Quarter are shown, as well as St Nicholas’ Church at left.
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: The West End of the Charles Bridge Looking towards St Nicholas's Church and the Bridge Towers 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-the-west-end-of-the-charles-bridge-looking-towards-st-r1186740, accessed 26 April 2024.