Joseph Mallord William Turner The Grand Canal, Venice, near the Accademia, with Santa Maria della Salute in the Distance 1840
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
The Grand Canal, Venice, near the Accademia, with Santa Maria della Salute in the Distance 1840
D32131
Turner Bequest CCCXV 15
Turner Bequest CCCXV 15
Pencil and watercolour on white wove paper, 223 x 325 mm
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram towards bottom right
Inscribed by John Ruskin in blue ink ‘1632’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCCXV – 15’ bottom right
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram towards bottom right
Inscribed by John Ruskin in blue ink ‘1632’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCCXV – 15’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Exhibition history
1904
National Gallery, London, various dates to at least 1904 (644, as ‘Venice. La Salute’).
1931
Display of Watercolours from the Turner Bequest, lent from the British Museum, National Gallery, Millbank (Tate Gallery), London 1931–March 1934 (no catalogue).
1937
Aquarelles de Turner, oeuvres de Blake/Englischen Graphiken und Aquarellen: W. Blake und J.M.W. Turner, Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, January–February 1937, Staatliche Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna, March–April 1937 (105, as ‘Venedig, Sta. Maria della Salute, vom gegenüberliegenden Ufer aus’, c.1839).
1975
Turner in the British Museum: Drawings and Watercolours, Department of Prints and Drawings, British Museum, London, May 1975–February 1976 (256, as ‘Venice: Looking down the Grand Canal from opposite the Accademia’, 1840).
1993
J.M.W. Turner 1775–1851: Impressions de Gran Bretanya i el Continent Europeu / Impresiones de Gran Bretaña y el Continente Europeo, Centre Cultural de la Fundació ”la Caixa”, Barcelona, September–November 1993, Sala de Exposiciones de la Fundación ”la Caixa”, Madrid, November 1993–January 1994 (71, as ‘Venice: On the Grand Canal, looking towards S. Maria della Salute’, c.1840, reproduced in colour).
1994
J.M.W. Turner 1775–1851: Aquarelles et Dessins du Legs Turner: Collection de la Tate Gallery, Londres / Watercolours and Drawings from the Turner Bequest: Collection from the Tate Gallery, London, Palais des Beaux-Arts de Charleroi, September–December 1994 (71, as ‘Venice: On the Grand Canal, looking towards S. Maria della Salute’, c.1840, reproduced in colour).
2003
Turner and Venice, Tate Britain, London, October 2003–January 2004, Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, February–May 2004, Museo Correr, Venice, September 2004–January 2005, Fundació ”la Caixa”, Barcelona, March–June 2005 (101, as ‘The Grand Canal from near the Accademia, with Santa Maria della Salute in the Distance’, 1840, reproduced in colour).
References
1904
E.T. Cook and Alexander Wedderburn eds., Library Edition: The Works of John Ruskin: Volume XIII: Turner: The Harbours of England; Catalogues and Notes, London 1904, p.638 no.644, as ‘Venice. La Salute’.
1909
A.J. Finberg, A Complete Inventory of the Drawings of the Turner Bequest, London 1909, vol.II, p.1017, CCCXV 15, as ‘The Salute. 644, N.G.’.
1838
C[harles] Lewis Hind, Turner’s Golden Visions, London and Edinburgh 1910 and 1925, pl.XXIX (colour), as ‘The Salute, Venice’, 1838.
1930
A.J. Finberg, In Venice with Turner, London 1930, pp.125, 172, as ‘The Salute, from the Academy’, 1840, pl.XXIII.
1839
Laurence Binyon, Ausstellung von englischen Graphiken und Aquarellen: W. Blake und J.M.W. Turner, exhibition catalogue, Staatliche Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna 1937, p.28 no.105, as ‘Venedig, Sta. Maria della Salute, vom gegenüberliegenden Ufer aus’, c.1839.
1975
Andrew Wilton, Turner in the British Museum: Drawings and Watercolours, exhibition catalogue, Department of Prints and Drawings, British Museum, London 1975, p.148 no.256, as ‘Venice: Looking down the Grand Canal from opposite the Accademia’, 1840.
1840
Ian Warrell, J.M.W. Turner 1775–1851: Impressions de Gran Bretanya i el Continent Europeu / Impresiones de Gran Bretaña y el Continente Europeo, exhibition catalogue, Centre Cultural de la Fundació ”la Caixa”, Barcelona 1993, reproduced in colour p.215, pp.306–7 no.71, as ‘Venice: On the Grand Canal, looking towards S. Maria della Salute’, c.1840.
1840
Ian Warrell, J.M.W. Turner 1775–1851: Aquarelles et Dessins du Legs Turner: Collection de la Tate Gallery, Londres / Watercolours and Drawings from the Turner Bequest: Collection from the Tate Gallery, London, exhibition catalogue, Palais des Beaux-Arts de Charleroi 1994, p.216 no.71, as ‘Venice: On the Grand Canal, looking towards S. Maria della Salute’, c.1840, reproduced in colour p.[217].
1995
Ian Warrell, Through Switzerland with Turner: Ruskin’s First Selection from the Turner Bequest, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1995, p.108 under no.63.
2003
Ian Warrell in Warrell, David Laven, Jan Morris and Cecilia Powell, Turner and Venice, exhibition catalogue, Tate Britain, London 2003, pp.161, 164, 258, 272 no.101, as ‘The Grand Canal from near the Accademia, with Santa Maria della Salute in the Distance’, 1840, fig.171 (colour).
2005
Ian Warrell, Cecilia Powell and David Laven, Turner i Venècia, exhibition catalogue, Fundació ”la Caixa”, Barcelona 2005, p.128 no. 57, as ‘El Gran Canal a prop de l’Accademia, amb Santa Maria della Salute al fons’, 1840, reproduced in colour.
The viewpoint is along the south side of the south-western bend of the Grand Canal, looking east. Part of the Palazzo Giustinian Lolin is shown on the far left, with the Palazzo Civran Badoer Barozzi beside it. The Campo San Vidal follows, with the campanile of the church at the far end. The Ponte dell’Accademia now springs across the middle distance from here. Next come the Palazzi Cavalli-Franchetti and Barbaro before the straight reach terminating in the domes of Santa Maria della Salute on the opposite side. On the far right, less clearly defined, appears to be the Accademia (Santa Maria della Carità), with the Palazzo Brandolin Rota and others beyond.
Tate D32210 (Turner Bequest CCCXVII 25) is a slightly smaller 1840 colour study on grey paper showing much the same view, with slight variations in the architectural juxtapositions.1 Turner had made a detailed pencil drawing from nearby in the 1819 Milan to Venice sketchbook (Tate D14448–D14449; Turner Bequest CLXXV 69a–70). The network of often loose pencil outlines in the present work, including indications of the sails and hulls of shipping, combined with the selective use of brown and grey wash to indicate shadows in the strong sunlight of what appears to be early afternoon, gives a sense of spontaneity combined with sufficient precision to suggest that colour was applied at least in part while moored at the scene.
Nevertheless, Finberg criticised the varied handling, suggesting that Turner’s ‘powers of concentration were quickly exhausted’ by complex Grand Canal scenes such as this and another page of this sketchbook, D32136 (CCCXV 20): ‘As soon as he had established the tower of S. Vitale, ... his interest seems to have petered out, and nearly everything else ... is left vague and confused.’2 As Ian Warrell has noted, the viewpoint is about the same as that used for a prospect north along the canal towards the Palazzo Balbi elsewhere in the present book (D32134; CCCXV 18).3 See also the more developed watercolour looking south to The Accademia from the Grand Canal beyond numerous boats and figures (Ashmolean Museum, Oxford),4 on a similar leaf from the contemporary ‘Storm’ sketchbook (discussed in the present book’s Introduction).
Warrell has noted this page as among about half the views associated with the present sketchbook depicting the ‘long canyon of palaces’ winding north and south of the Rialto Bridge along the ‘central part’ of the Grand Canal: D32117–D32119, D32123, D32131, D32132, D32134–D32137 (Turner Bequest CCCXV 1, 2, 3, 7, 15, 16, 18, 19, 20, 21).5 See also D32121, D32122 and D32124 (CCCXV 5, 6, 8), showing scenes near its north-west and south-east ends, and D32178 (CCCXVI 41), a central subject now also linked to the book. For sites beyond the Grand Canal, see the sketchbook’s Introduction.
Verso:
Blank; inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘Book 13’ bottom left1 (now obscured by mount); inscribed in pencil ‘1’ above right of centre; stamped in black with Turner Bequest monogram over ‘CCCXV – 15’ towards bottom left
Matthew Imms
September 2018
How to cite
Matthew Imms, ‘The Grand Canal, Venice, near the Accademia, with Santa Maria della Salute in the Distance 1840 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, September 2018, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2019, https://www