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 ... > Hamburg and Copenhagen Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Copenhagen: Christianborg Palace from Holmens Kanal; Houses and Masts 1835

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Copenhagen: Christianborg Palace from Holmens Kanal; Houses and Masts’ 1835
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 2 Recto:
Copenhagen: Christianborg Palace from Holmens Kanal; Houses and Masts 1835
D30824
Turner Bequest CCCV 2
Pencil on white laid writing paper, 92 x 155 mm
Partial Watermark: orb ornamented with laurel leaves
Inscribed in red ink by Ruskin ‘2’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCCV–2’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Here Turner depicts aspects of Copenhagen. One view shows local houses lining a canal with boats in the waterway. The other view shows Christianborg Palace, taken from a vantage point on the Holmens Kanal. The Palace is located on Slotsholmen islet, part of Copenhagen’s Inner City. Built on tenth century foundations, the Palace has been reconstructed three times owing to a sequence of devastating fires. Turner pictures its second incarnation here: a lavish neo-classical residence designed for King Frederick VI by the architect Christian Frederick Hansen.1
For other drawings of Copenhagen see Tate D30825–D30829, D30832–D30833, D30859, D30861, D30873, D30881, D30883, D30887; Turner Bequest CCCV 2a–5, 6a–7, 20, 21, 27, 31, 32, 34.

Alice Rylance-Watson
April 2015

1
‘Christianborg Palace’, Kongehuset, accessed 31 April 2015, http://kongehuset.dk/english/palaces/christiansborg-palace/christiansborg-palace

How to cite

Alice Rylance-Watson, ‘Copenhagen: Christianborg Palace from Holmens Kanal; Houses and Masts 1835 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, April 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-copenhagen-christianborg-palace-from-holmens-kanal-houses-r1187202, accessed 21 November 2024.