Joseph Mallord William Turner

Inverted relative to the sketchbook’s foliation, the view continues on folio 72 recto opposite (D14453), with a view east-north-east along the Grand Canal in the direction of the Rialto. Finberg subsequently annotated his 1909 Inventory entry (‘The Grand Canal; with Palazzo Foscari, Giustiniani, Rezzonico, &c., on the right’), noting Turner’s ‘“Tron”, “Barbaro”’, and revising the title as ‘View from P. Foscari looking towards Rialto: with the Mocenigo, Charmet & Contarini Palaces on right. (This is the right half of drawing which is cont^d. on p.72)’.1 The Turner scholar C.F. Bell annotated another copy, crossing out the palaces’ names and writing ‘Barbaro, [?Pisa Torri], Foscari’.2

On the present page the corner of the Ca’ Foscari is seen in the foreground on the right,3 at the entrance to the Rio di Ca’ Foscari. East across the apex of the almost right-angled bend of the Grand Canal at this point are the low Palazzo Erizzo Nani Mocenigo on the right with the ‘graceful fourteenth century windows’ Finberg noted,4 the Palazzo Contarini delle Figure (with its tall chimneys) in the middle, its façade partly obscured by sails, and the long, three-part front of the Palazzo Mocenigo receding to the left.

For other drawings made in the vicinity and an overview of Turner’s coverage of Venice, see the sketchbook’s Introduction.