Joseph Mallord William Turner

Finberg subsequently annotated his basic 1909 Inventory entry (‘Boats’): ‘Boats off Quay. Pby. Venice. [‘?Fusina’ inserted above] Very rough’.1 The Turner scholar C.F. Bell annotated another copy: ‘on the Cannaregio??’.2 Bell similarly annotated Finberg’s more detailed 1930 entry in his In Venice with Turner (‘Boats off Quay. Perhaps at Fusina’).3

Inverted relative to the sketchbook’s foliation, the rapid studies of gondolas and sailing boats here appear to be in the foreground of a Venetian canal scene, although the buildings, including the spire of a distant campanile, are so tentatively drawn that the setting is uncertain, and it may even be the case that the boats were drawn on a different occasion. The drawings on folios 37 verso–39 verso (D14384–D14388) are all of a similarly slight character, with more attention paid to the small craft than their settings. For other studies of boats in this sketchbook, see under the recto (D14383).