Joseph Mallord William Turner

With the page turned horizontally, the view is south-south-east from the Piazzetta between the two columns on the Molo waterfront, looking towards the campanile and dome of San Giorgio Maggiore across the Bacino. Framing the view to left and right respectively are the Palazzo Ducale (Doge’s Palace) and Libreria Sansoviniana. The representation of the similar columns as being of apparently different heights is symptomatic of the perspectival challenge of the arrangement, which Turner had struggled with in 1819 in a more refined drawing in the Milan to Venice sketchbook (Tate D14402; Turner Bequest CLXXV 46a).

Finberg later annotated the transcription in his 1909 Inventory entry (‘“4 Men carrying a ... of Timber.”’): ‘?”line” or “load”’.1 This possibly relates to the slight figures towards the bottom left or to some other commercial activity on the busy quay.