Turner’s viewpoint is the Canale della Giudecca, immediately off the church of the Redentore in the right foreground. Its waterfront façade faces slightly east of north, but it is presented here as if it were facing north-west, almost like an architect’s schematic elevation for the sake of noting details, whereas the Fondamenta della Croce beyond runs east-north-east to the Zitelle, and points the way at the end of the Isola della Giudecca to the Isola di San Giorgio Maggiore and its church and campanile, towards the left.
At any event, Palladio’s Redentore is shown rather inaccurately. For example, the decorative moulding suggesting the roofline (corresponding with the profile of a series of buttresses above the side aisle) should project from immediately below the horizontal upper entablature of the nave, and the corresponding motif in relief below, marking the actual profile of the aisle roof, descends from immediately beside the capitals supporting the pediment. Towards the top right is a continuation,
1 giving a rough impression of the western part of the façade, the parallel free-standing buttresses receding in steep perspective along the side, and the whole dome, surmounted by its cupola and statue.
The layout of the buildings in the afternoon sunlight to the left of the Redentore appears much the same today, but their recession towards the Zitelle is rather condensed. Lower waterfront building still partly obscure the Redentore’s façade at the point labelled ‘S Giaco’, and were presumably then associated with the church of San Giacomo, demolished in 1837 (three years before this study), which had stood just behind them along the waterfront to the right, beyond the right-hand edge of this view, still called the Fondamenta San Giacomo.
2 In 1819 Turner had occasionally noted its campanile in distant views; see for example Tate
D14439 (Turner Bequest CLXXV 65) in the
Milan to Venice sketchbook.
Finberg later annotated his 1909
Inventory entry: ‘Sketch for oil pntg, “Bellini’s Pictures Redentore” R.A. 1841’’.
3 This refers to the
Depositing of John Bellini’s Three Pictures in la Chiesa Redentore, Venice, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1841 (private collection; engraved in 1858: Tate impression
T05192),
4 and this sheet could well have informed the background of the busy waterborne scene, where the Redentore is shown from this direction, albeit even less accurately. Ian Warrell has also noted a similarity with the backdrop to the right-hand half of another 1841 exhibit, the
Giudecca, la Donna della Salute and San Georgio (private collection).
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