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

Inverted relative to the sketchbook’s foliation, the right-hand half of the page shows a continuation of the full-page view on folio 48 verso opposite (D14406). Finberg subsequently annotated his 1909 Inventory entry (‘Continuation of previous drawing [The Rialto, with the east side of the Grand Canal]; also “The Inn of Great Britain, Albergo.”’): ‘Contin- of buildings on left side. (P. Rinaldi, Cerroni & Tollotti.) also anr. sketch of bldgs. with balconies on right side – “The Inn of Great Britain. Albero (sic!) [‘Auberg’ inserted above] | Is this a study for the Farnley dg of Rialto. No. See pp.73a & 74. This is the Hakewill dg view’.1 The Turner scholar C.F. Bell annotated another copy: ‘towards the Riva del Vin’.2

The view is north-west along the north side of the Grand Canal at the Fondamenta del Vin, just short of the Rialto Bridge, shown in full on the opposite page. The Rinaldi, with the Rio Terà San Silvestro on its near side, has been considerably altered and made taller, obscuring the top of the campanile of San Giovanni Elemosinario from this angle. As Finberg noted in 1930: ‘The house next to the Rinaldi palace has now had a storey added to it, but the tall building beyond it with the wooden attics on its roofs, once the Cerroni palace I believe, and the Tol[l]otti, its neighbour, are very little altered today’.3 See under D14406 for other aspects of the scene and related views.4

The slight, narrow study the other way up at the outer edge apparently shows the east end of the canal frontage of the Palazzo Cavalli (or Corner Martinengo Ravà), then the Albergo Leon Bianco, where Turner was staying on this first visit to Venice;5 it is now a civic building. Another sketchbook Turner carried with him on this tour includes travel notes by James Hakewill (1778–1843), with whom he had been collaborating on the Picturesque Tour of Italy (published in 1820); see Nicola Moorby’s Introduction to the Route to Rome book (Tate; Turner Bequest CLXXI). Before listing various places and pictures to see, Hakewill noted: ‘Venice – Go to the Leone Bianco | on the grand Canal’ (Tate D13903; Turner Bequest CLXXI 24). The plain windows on its ground floor and the distinctive corbels at its corner remain recognisable, although the enclosed, projecting balcony structure above (likely wooden) has since been removed, revealing or replaced by an arched window and balcony matching the one to its right.6 A similar feature remains in place just around the corner on the second floor.

To the left of the Leon Bianco, in consistent perspective with its receding horizontals, is Turner’s inscription ‘The Inn | of | Great Britain | [ALBERO]’, which likely records signage at that point on the front of the Ca’ Farsetti, another hotel at that time, known also as the Auberge de la Grande Bretagne or Albergo Gran Bretagna.7 This effectively makes the isolated detail an inverted continuation from the opposite page, where several bays of the Farsetti are shown in the immediate foreground, cut off by the outer edge.

The Leon Bianco may also be shown in a slight view on folio 38 verso (D14386).