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 Berlin: The Brandenburg Gate from the Pariser Platz 1835

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Berlin: The Brandenburg Gate from the Pariser Platz’ 1835
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 22 Recto
Berlin: The Brandenburg Gate from the Pariser Platz 1835
D31064
Turner Bequest CCCVII 23
Pencil on cream laid paper, 89 x 162 mm
Watermark ‘cfw & s’
Inscribed in pencil by Turner ‘Metopes | Triks’ centre towards left; ‘D[...]’ top left
Inscribed in red ink by Ruskin ‘23’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCCVII–23’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This is a sketch of the Brandenburg Gate, Berlin, taken from the Pariser Platz. Completed in 1791, this neoclassical triumphal arch was designed by the architect Carl Gotthard Langhans for King Frederick William II. It is modelled on the Propylaea, the gateway to the Acropolis in Athens. Turner has made note of the ‘Metopes’ (metopes) and ‘Triks’ (triglyphs) which form part of the frieze decoration. A separate jotting of a figure, perhaps a sculpture, is rendered at top left.
For other sketches of Berlin see Tate D21045–D31082; Turner Bequest CCCVII 13a–32.

Alice Rylance-Watson
May 2015

How to cite

Alice Rylance-Watson, ‘Berlin: The Brandenburg Gate from the Pariser Platz 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-berlin-the-brandenburg-gate-from-the-pariser-platz-r1186937, accessed 23 April 2024.