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 ... > Prague, Nuremberg, Frankfurt and Rhine ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Prague: St Vitus's Cathedral from the South; Three Sketches of a Tower 1835

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Prague: St Vitus's Cathedral from the South; Three Sketches of a Tower’ 1835
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 71 Recto:
Prague: St Vitus's Cathedral from the South; Three Sketches of a Tower 1835
D30765
Turner Bequest CCCIV 71
Pencil on cream laid paper, 190 x 118 mm
Watermark ‘jh[&z]’
Inscribed in red ink by Ruskin ‘71’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCCIV–71’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This is a study of St Vitus Cathedral in Prague, rendered with the sketchbook turned upside down. St Vitus is located within the Prague Castle complex and was the traditional coronation church of Bohemian kings and Holy Roman Emperors. The gothic cathedral was constructed under the patronage of Charles IV, King and Holy Roman Emperor, on the site of a previous Romanesque chapel founded by Wenceslaus I (later Saint Wenceslaus).
Turner has sketched unidentified towers above and below St Vitus; these are also seen on the folio opposite (Tate D30764; Turner Bequest CCCIV 70a).

Alice Rylance-Watson
December 2015

How to cite

Alice Rylance-Watson, ‘Prague: St Vitus's Cathedral from the South; Three Sketches of a Tower 1835 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, December 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-st-vituss-cathedral-from-the-south-three-sketches-of-r1187140, accessed 20 September 2024.