Joseph Mallord William Turner

In an undated note, the Turner scholar C.F. Bell marked Finberg’s tentative 1909 Inventory entry (‘Interior of St. Mark’s (?)’) as showing the ‘choir screen to r[ight], looking into the North Transept’,1 and the orientation of Turner’s view was first published by Laurence Binyon.2 As with Turner’s other 1840 colour studies of the Venetian basilica’s interior (Tate D32227, D32241, D32252; Turner Bequest CCCXVIII 8, 22, CCCXIX 4), there is rather more concern for the light illuminating the dim, richly decorated interior than architectural accuracy,3 and Ian Warrell has suggested that in the absence of specifically ‘related pencil sketches, the inexactness of these interiors suggests that Turner created them solely from his general impressions’.4

The view here is nevertheless comparable with that of the small 1730s painting by Canaletto (1697–1768) showing The Interior of San Marco: The Crossing and North Transept (Royal Collection).5 On the right is a much-simplified version of the Gothic iconostasis screen6 separating the nave from the presbytery to its east, supporting statues of the Apostles. Loose marks at the lower centre and left give a sense of members of the congregation facing that way.

Robert Upstone has compared the handling here and in another St Mark’s interior (Tate D32241; Turner Bequest CCCXVIII 22) with that of the 1895–6 painting Interior of St Mark’s, Venice by Walter Richard Sickert (1860–1942; Tate N05314),7 which shows the iconostasis head on from the nave; as discussed in the Introduction to this subsection the two Turners are not recorded as having been exhibited by then, and any resemblance is likely fortuitous.

Technical notes:

This is one of numerous 1840 Venice works Ian Warrell has noted as being on ‘Grey-brown paper produced by an unknown maker (possibly ... a batch made at Fabriano [Italy])’;1 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).