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 Cologne from the Rhine; Prague: St Lawrence's Church 1835

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Cologne from the Rhine; Prague: St Lawrence's Church’ 1835
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 74 Verso:
Cologne from the Rhine; Prague: St Lawrence's Church 1835
D30772
Turner Bequest CCCIV 74 a
Pencil on cream laid paper, 118 x 190 mm
Watermark ‘[jh]&z’
Inscribed in pencil by Turner ‘Leonhardt Thor’ | ‘Holtz Thor’ | ‘Pant Thor’ top left
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Here Turner has produced two sketches of Cologne and Prague, oriented inversely to one another. The Cologne view, taken from the Rhine, shows some of the city’s ancient Romanesque churches and medieval towers. The inscriptions ‘Leonhardt Thor’, ‘Holtz Thor’ and ‘Pant Thor’ appear to refer to these, the latter, ‘Pant Thor’, being a shortening of St Pantaleon’s Church towers.
St Lawrence’s, a baroque church situated on Petrín Hill overlooking Prague’s Lesser Quarter, is depicted in the second sketch (see Tate D30771; Turner Bequest CCCIV 74).

Alice Rylance-Watson
December 2015

How to cite

Alice Rylance-Watson, ‘Cologne from the Rhine; Prague: St Lawrence's Church 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-cologne-from-the-rhine-prague-st-lawrences-church-r1187147, accessed 19 April 2024.