J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours

D30296–D30373; D41211–D41212

CCCI 1–40a

Pocket book bound with boards and brown marbled paper
Two brown leather loops attached to top and bottom of front cover and one attached to centre of back cover for holding pencils
Signed by Charles Turner in black ink and inscribed ‘N^o 354 Contains | 38 Leaves in Pencil | all on both sides’ top of back endpaper (Tate D41212, orientated inversely relative to the foliation)
Signed in pencil by Charles Locke Eastlake ‘C.L.E.’ and John Prescott Knight ‘JPK’ top of back endpaper (Tate D41212, orientated inversely relative to the foliation)
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram bottom right of outside back cover
Stamped in black ‘CCCI’ bottom centre of back cover, bottom centre of inside back cover, top right front cover and top centre of inside front cover
40 leaves of cream wove paper
Watermarked ‘cfaf’
Approximate size of page 159 x 100 mm

Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856

This sketchbook traces Turner’s last moments in Dresden and his journey south to Prague via Teplitz. He travelled this route almost entirely by carriage, passing two major Napoleonic battlefields on the way, at Kulm and Nollendorf. After a short stop in Teplitz, then a fashionable spa resort, Turner made for the Bohemian capital Prague. This grand imperial city inspired over twenty pencil sketches, taken from the Old Town, the Little Quarter and Hradcany, the hilltop complex containing Prague Castle and St Vitus Cathedral. A further forty views of the city are contained in the Prague, Nuremberg, Frankfurt and Rhine sketchbook, Turner Bequest CCCIV. Turner drew on all this material to develop his design for Thomas Campbell’s Poetical Works entitled Prague – Kosciusko (Tate Impression T04767), published in 1837.1