Joseph Mallord William Turner

The Turner scholar C.F. Bell annotated Finberg’s 1909 Inventory entry (‘Two views on the Giudecca: one of the back of the Salute, Dogana, and Tower of S. Marco, &c., the other of the back of the Salute looking towards the mountains (inland).’), qualifying the ‘Two views’ as ‘panoramic’.1 Bell marked Finberg’s 1930 In Venice with Turner (‘Two views on the Giudecca’) in the same way.2

As in the drawing looking along the Canale della Giudecca on folio 18 verso opposite (D14522), the viewpoint of the upper drawing is along or off the Giudecca’s Fondamenta della Croce, looking north to the church of Santa Maria della Salute on the left, with the porch of the Dogana to its right. Beyond, across the Bacino to the north-north-east are the campanile and domes of San Marco (St Mark’s), the south front of the Palazzo Ducal (Doge’s Palace), and towers and domes along the Riva degli Schiavoni to their east.

Below is a reprise of the central and right-hand parts of the view opposite, where the Canale della Giudecca stretches to the west-north-west with the dome and twin campanili of the church of Santa Maria del Rosario (the Gesuati) on its north side. Ian Warrell has observed in relation to the two pages: ‘It was not until his final visit [in 1840] that Turner really assimilated the area as one of direct relevance to his art. He had made his first tentative survey in 1819, but then ventured no further than the church of the Redentore.’3 For other drawings made in the vicinity, see the sketchbook’s Introduction.