Joseph Mallord William Turner

Scene in Venice

c.1840–5

Image released under Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-ND (3.0 Unported)

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Not on display

Artist: Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Medium: Oil paint on canvas
Dimensions: Support: 622 x 927 mm
frame: 900 x 1210 x 75 mm
Collection: Tate
Acquisition: Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Reference: N05488

Catalogue entry

503. [N05488] Scene in Venice c. 1840–45

THE TATE GALLERY, LONDON (5488)

Canvas, 24 1/2 × 36 1/2 (62 × 92·5)

Coll. Turner Bequest 1856 (144, one of 2 each 3'0 1/2" × 2'0 1/2"" with No. 502 [N05487]; identified by chalk number on back); transferred to the Tate Gallery 1947.

Exh. R.A. 1974–5 (537); Leningrad and Moscow 1975–6 (69); Venice 1983–4 (12, repr. in colour).

Lit. Davies 1946, pp. 159, 188; Butlin 1981, p. 45.

Repr. Connoisseur clxxxvii 1974, p. 192 in colour, before and after cleaning and with detail.

See No. 502 [N05487]. The scene appears to be a view on the Grand Canal but it has not been possible to identify the view precisely.

There are irregular paint losses down the left-hand edge, now restored. Impressed rectilinear lines of dirt, also now removed or concealed by restoration, show that other pictures were leant against this one while the paint was still wet.

Published in:
Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll, The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner, revised ed., New Haven and London 1984