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 ... > Dresden, Teplitz and Prague Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Teplitz from the North-West, with the Buildings of the Schlossplatz in the Middle Ground (Left), the Schlossberg and Schlackenberg in the Distance; A Standing Soldier 1835

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Teplitz from the North-West, with the Buildings of the Schlossplatz in the Middle Ground (Left), the Schlossberg and Schlackenberg in the Distance; A Standing Soldier’ 1835
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 12 Recto:
Teplitz from the North-West, with the Buildings of the Schlossplatz in the Middle Ground (Left), the Schlossberg and Schlackenberg in the Distance; A Standing Soldier 1835
D30318
Turner Bequest CCCI 12
Pencil on cream wove paper, 100 x 159 mm
Inscribed in pencil by Turner ‘[...] V[...] | N[...]’ bottom left (inverted), ‘[...]’ above soldier’s head
Inscribed in red ink by Ruskin ‘12’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCCI – 12’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This is a view of Teplitz (modern day Teplice in the Czech Republic), a town located in Bohemia near the border with the German state of Saxony. At left the Schlossplatz can be seen, with the Dekanalkirche, Schlosskirche and Teplice Palace. In the distance the Schlossberg and Schlackenberg hills are visible.
Turner has also rendered a jotting of a standing soldier, identified, by A.J. Finberg, as belonging to an Austrian regiment.1 Turner’s visit to Teplitz happened to coincide with an historic conference between the Austrian Emperor Franz Josef I, the Russian Tsar Nicholas I, King Friedrich Wilhelm III of Prussia and King Anthony of Saxony. The leaders, their delegation of ministers, and their attendant officers convened at Teplitz in September 1835 for the unveiling of a monument commemorating the battle of Kulm (29–30 August 1813), located a few miles north-east of Teplitz. The combined Prussian, Russian, and Austrian forces secured a victory over Napoleon’s armies at Kulm.
For more sketches of Teplitz see Tate D30315–D30335; Turner Bequest CCCI 10a–20a.

Alice Rylance-Watson
September 2015

1
Finberg 1909, vol.II, p.974.

How to cite

Alice Rylance-Watson, ‘Teplitz from the North-West, with the Buildings of the Schlossplatz in the Middle Ground (Left), the Schlossberg and Schlackenberg in the Distance; A Standing Soldier 1835 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, September 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-teplitz-from-the-north-west-with-the-buildings-of-the-r1186702, accessed 17 July 2024.