Joseph Mallord William Turner

Finberg subsequently annotated his 1909 Inventory entry (‘On the Giudecca, with “S. Marta.”’): ‘Redentore. S Marta’.1 The Turner scholar C.F. Bell wrote in another copy: ‘Redentore to l. Gesuati to r’.2 Bell marked Finberg’s similar text in In Venice with Turner (1930): ‘Redentore on left, Gesuati on right’.3

The viewpoint is along or off the Fondamenta della Croce, looking south-west to the dome and buttresses of the Redentore church, with the campanile of the lost church of San Giacomo (suppressed in 1806 and demolished in 18374) to its right. Beyond stretches the Canale della Giudecca to the west-north-west. On its far side are the dome and twin campanili of the church of Santa Maria del Rosario (the Gesuati). Turner’s ‘S^t Martha | Martha’ is a slight red herring, referring not to that church but to the Punta di Santa Marta, associated with the former church of that name at what was then (prior to modern harbour developments) the very western tip of Venice further down that side of the canal.

There is a view looking north from about the same point on folio 19 recto opposite (D14523), together with a reprise of the present one. Ian Warrell has observed in relation to the two pages: ‘It was not until his final visit [in 1840] that Turner really assimilated the area as one of direct relevance to his art. He had made his first tentative survey in 1819, but then ventured no further than the church of the Redentore.’5 For other drawings made in the vicinity, see the sketchbook’s Introduction.