Joseph Mallord William Turner

Finberg later annotated his 1909 Inventory entry (‘Views from the canal’), transcribing Turner’s inscription as ‘“San Biagio”’.1 He noted: ‘3 sk[etches]. 1 of Citella on l. with Salute on right’. The Turner scholar C.F. Bell marked another copy with Turner’s words.2

The vantage point, on the Bacino west of the Isola di San Giorgio Maggiore, is similar to that used for the views west and north towards the Salute and San Marco on folio 16 verso opposite (D31822). Here, the main subject is the churches of the Zitelle, to the south-west, and the Redentore, further off to the west-south-west, facing the Canale della Giudecca on the island of the same name. Above appears to be a loose rendering of the north side of the canal, centred on the Salute to the west, with campanili north of the Grand Canal towards the right.

Below, the other way up at the outer edge, the view seems to be similar, encompassing the Redentore on the left and the Salute on the right. The inscription at the corner, apparently ‘S^t Biagio’, likely refers to the church of Santi Biagio e Cataldo, which then stood overlooking the canal towards the western end of the Isola della Giudecca; see folio 33 recto (D31854), and a watercolour study in the contemporary Grand Canal and Giudecca sketchbook (Tate D32128; Turner Bequest CCCXV 12).

Ian Warrell has noted that 1840 Giudecca studies such as those here, on folios 30 verso–33 recto (D31849–D31854) and in the Venice; Passau to Würzburg sketchbook (Tate D31288–D31293; Turner Bequest CCCX 6a–9) show how Turner ‘really began to see that this previously neglected quarter offered original ways of seeing Venice’.3