Catalogue entry
Finberg later annotated his basic 1909
Inventory entry (‘Boat, with figures, &c.’): ‘Boats under Bridge of Sighs’.
1 With the pages turned horizontally, the bridge is lightly indicated in the upper part of this view, on folio 77 recto opposite (
D32413). Looking north up the Rio del Palazzo from off the Bacino, the Palazzo Ducale (Doge’s Palace) is on left, with the New Prisons opposite.
Cecilia Powell has noted folios 76 verso–77 recto (
D32412–D32413) as the first of the Venetian views filling the rest of this sketchbook, following on from a long sequence mostly characterised as ‘Mountains’ by Finberg (7 recto–76 recto;
D32275–D32411)
2 along his rout south-east from Bregenz (see under folio 2 verso;
D32266).
3 They are likely among the first drawings made on Turner’s third and last stay in Venice; see the sketchbook’s Introduction.
The subject was long familiar to the artist; shortly before the present tour, he had exhibited his oil painting
Venice, the Bridge of Sighs at the 1840 Royal Academy exhibition (Tate
N00527).
4 Compare sketches in the contemporary
Venice; Passau to Würzburg sketchbook, perhaps the last made in Venice (Tate
D31306–D31307,
D31309–D31310,
D31388; Turner Bequest CCCX 15a, 16, 17, 18, 57), and an evocative watercolour study on grey-brown paper, showing the scene by night (Tate
D32253; Turner Bequest CCCXIX 5). There is another view on folio 90 recto (
D32439).
Matthew Imms
September 2018
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