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

Inverted relative to the sketchbook’s foliation, the drawing continues across folio 64 recto opposite (D14437). The Turner scholar C.F. Bell annotated Finberg’s 1909 Inventory entry (‘S. Maria della Salute and Dogana on left, with Campanile and Piazzetta on the right’): ‘and Doge’s Palace from San Giorgio’.1

On this page the view is north across the Bacino to the Piazzetta, flanked by the campanile and domes of St Mark’s. The Doge’s Palace is lightly indicated on the right, but detail fades out to the left below the campanile of San Moisè, the last significant landmark in this half. There is a separate detail of a domed tower at the top right. The opposite page takes in the Salute and Dogana, looking north-west across the end of the Giudecca Canal, the viewpoint being on or close to the eastern tip of the Giudecca where it almost meets the Island of San Giorgio Maggiore. A comparable, more consistently detailed view from the Bacino is on folios 56 verso, 57 verso and 58 verso (D14422, D14424, D14426).

Ian Warrell has noted that the present page ‘does not have sufficient detail for it to have been the source’2 for the 1819 watercolour of a similar view in the Como and Venice sketchbook, which may have been made directly,3 and shows the buildings aligned as if seen from slightly further east.

For other drawings made in the vicinity and an overview of Turner’s coverage of Venice, see the sketchbook’s Introduction.