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: The City and the Prospect down the Vltava from Petrín Hill 1835

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Prague: The City and the Prospect down the Vltava from Petrín Hill’ 1835
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 76 Recto:
Prague: The City and the Prospect down the Vltava from Petrín Hill 1835
D30775
Turner Bequest CCCIV 76
Pencil on cream laid paper, 118 x 190 mm
Watermark ‘[h]onig’
Inscribed in red ink by Ruskin ‘76’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCCIV–76’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This prospect of Prague was taken from Petrín Hill, and encompasses the Old Town, the Vltava River, Charles Bridge as well as the imperial Castle and Cathedral of St Vitus (seen in the distance at centre). Petrín Hill afforded Turner excellent prospects of Prague and is itself an historically significant feature of the city. It was fortified with a wall, battlements and bastions by Emperor and King of Bohemia Charles IV to strengthen the defense of Prague Castle which was then his residence. The Hunger Wall, as it was named, can be seen in part in the foreground of Turner’s sketch, at left.
Turner produced several views of Prague on the 1835 tour. For other drawings in this sketchbook 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. See also the Dresden, Tepliz and Prague sketchbook (Tate D30344–D30361, D30364–D30366; Turner Bequest CCCI 25–33a, 36–37).

Alice Rylance-Watson
December 2015

How to cite

Alice Rylance-Watson, ‘Prague: The City and the Prospect down the Vltava from Petrín Hill 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-the-city-and-the-prospect-down-the-vltava-from-petrin-r1187150, accessed 26 April 2024.