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: View up the Vltava to the Charles Bridge, Little Quarter and St Nicholas's Church; River Scenery with Sailing Boats, Probably on the Lower Rhine 1835

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Prague: View up the Vltava to the Charles Bridge, Little Quarter and St Nicholas's Church; River Scenery with Sailing Boats, Probably on the Lower Rhine’ 1835
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 92 Recto:
Prague: View up the Vltava to the Charles Bridge, Little Quarter and St Nicholas's Church; River Scenery with Sailing Boats, Probably on the Lower Rhine 1835
D30805
Turner Bequest CCCIV 92
Pencil on cream laid paper, 118 x 190 mm
Watermark ‘zo’
Inscribed in red ink by Ruskin ‘92’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCCIV–92’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Here Turner has drawn two separate views, orientated inversely relative to each other. The larger of the two depicts Prague, looking down the Vltava towards Charles Bridge with the Little Quarter at right. ‘Da Kleins Seite’ (‘Little Quarter’) inscribed on the folio opposite (Tate D30804; Turner Bequest CCCIV 91a) refers to this sketch. Visible is the domed Church of St Nicholas, with its adjacent baroque tower.
The second sketch probably depicts a scene on the Rhine.

Alice Rylance-Watson
December 2015

How to cite

Alice Rylance-Watson, ‘Prague: View up the Vltava to the Charles Bridge, Little Quarter and St Nicholas's Church; River Scenery with Sailing Boats, Probably on the Lower Rhine 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-view-up-the-vltava-to-the-charles-bridge-little-r1187180, accessed 26 April 2024.