Catalogue entry
This loosely worked colour study, little more than an atmospheric ‘beginning’, is nevertheless recognisable
1 as showing the domes of Santa Maria della Salute, blue-grey to the south-west near the centre, across the Grand Canal from the vicinity of the Hotel Europa (Palazzo Giustinian), where Turner was staying; see the Introduction to this subsection.
Compare two colour studies of night scenes from around the same point (Tate
D32230,
D32232; Turner Bequest CCCXVIII 11, 13), and a related view of the Dogana and Salute by the light of a rocket (
D32248; CCCXVIII 29).
2 All were developed over broad washes with touches of chalk, gouache and dark, fluid outlines to bring out selected details, and the present work could presumably have been developed in a similar way. The brighter lighting and composition in this case are more reminiscent of a finished watercolour on conventional white sketchbook paper,
The Grand Canal, with Santa Maria della Salute, from near the Hotel Europa (private collection),
3 looking in the same direction towards a bright yellow sunset.
There is an even slighter Venice waterfront view on the verso (
D40321).
The sky appears deliberately rubbed or scrubbed to introduce a degree of texture. Ian Warrell has observed that this sheet was ‘formerly attached at bottom edge’ to Tate
D29011 (Turner Bequest CCXCII 60), a German subject from later on the same tour.
1 They are among numerous mostly Venetian 1840 subjects that Warrell has noted as being on ‘Grey-brown paper produced by an unknown maker (possibly ... a batch made at Fabriano [Italy])’;
2 for numerous red-brown Fabriano sheets used for similar subjects, see for example under Tate
D32224 (Turner Bequest CCCXVIII 5).
Warrell noted the grey-brown sheets as being torn into two formats: nine sheets of approximately 148 x 232 mm (Tate
D32220,
D32249–D32250,
D32252–D32253,
D32255–D32258; Turner Bequest CCCXVIII 1, CCCXIX 1, 2, 4, 5, 7–10), and seven of twice the size, at about 231 x 295 mm (Tate
D32223,
D32226,
D32228–D32229,
D32231,
D32233,
D32242; Turner Bequest CCCXVIII 4, 7, 9, 10, 12, 14, 23).
Matthew Imms
September 2018
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