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 English and German Phrases; Dresden: The Frauenkirche from Rampischegasse; View in a Garden, Probably taken North of the Zwinger 1835

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘English and German Phrases; Dresden: The Frauenkirche from Rampischegasse; View in a Garden, Probably taken North of the Zwinger’ 1835
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 3 Recto
English and German Phrases; Dresden: The Frauenkirche from Rampischegasse; View in a Garden, Probably taken North of the Zwinger 1835
D31026
Turner Bequest CCCVII 4
Pencil on cream laid paper, 162 x 89 mm
Watermark double X mark
Inscribed in pencil by Turner and another with English and German phrases [transcribed in full in the main catalogue entry] and ‘[?Wall]’ centre (inverted)
Inscribed in red ink by Ruskin ‘4’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCCVII–4’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Here Turner has inscribed English phrases, which have been translated into German by another hand (see also Tate D31020–D31026; Turner Bequest CCCVII 1–4). All the German translations except for the first three on this folio are written twice: first in standard German and second in old script known as deutsche Kurrent.
‘To know where
Wissen warum
Which place
Welche stelle
Try again
Versuch es noch einmal’
Orientated inversely to the phrases are two drawings of Dresden in Germany. The central view probably shows the gardens of the Zwinger Palace. The final sketch depicts the lower reaches of Dresden’s Frauenkirche or Church of our Lady, taken from a vantage point on the Rampischegasse. For more sketches of Dresden see Tate D30296–D30303, D30896–D30900, D31024–D31042; Turner Bequest CCCI 1–7, CCCVI 6a–9, CCCVII 3–12.

Alice Rylance-Watson
May 2015

How to cite

Alice Rylance-Watson, ‘English and German Phrases; Dresden: The Frauenkirche from Rampischegasse; View in a Garden, Probably taken North of the Zwinger 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-english-and-german-phrases-dresden-the-frauenkirche-from-r1186899, accessed 23 April 2024.