J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1836-47 Modern painter > Venice, Austria and Southern Germany ... > Rotterdam to Venice Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner ?A Venice Waterfront, with Moored Boats 1840

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘?A Venice Waterfront, with Moored Boats’ 1840
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 22 Recto:
?A Venice Waterfront, with Moored Boats 1840
D32303
Turner Bequest CCCXX 22
Pencil on white wove paper, 89 x 149 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘22’ top right, ascending vertically
Stamped in black ‘CCCXX – 22’ top right, ascending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The drawing was made with the page turned horizontally. It falls within the long sequence of sketches, mostly characterised as ‘Mountains’ by Finberg between folios 7 recto and 76 recto (D32275–D32411);1 see the sketchbook’s Introduction for the likely overall route between Bregenz and Venice.2 Presumably because the main sequence of Venetian views does not begin until folio 76 verso (D32412), Finberg called this a ‘River scene, with boats’,3 but it probably shows boats moored off a Venice waterfront, perhaps along the Canale della Giudecca. There are hints of a distant spire towards the left and a dome at the right.
This page would not be entirely isolated as a Venice view using up spare pages; folio 17 verso (D32296) shows a detailed views of the church of Santa Maria della Salute and its surroundings on the Grand Canal.

Matthew Imms
September 2018

1
See Finberg 1909, II, pp.1030–2.
2
See also Cecilia Powell, Turner in Germany, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1995, pp.65, 81 note 9.
3
Finberg 1909, II, p.1030.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘?A Venice Waterfront, with Moored Boats 1840 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, September 2018, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2019, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-a-venice-waterfront-with-moored-boats-r1196537, accessed 19 April 2024.