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

Most of the drawings in this sketchbook were made with the pages turned horizontally to allow for conventional landscape-format views; here, the upright proportions suit the confined subject. Finberg had annotated his 1909 Inventory entry, including his reading of Turner’s note of the bridge (‘Building. – “P... Maurizio.”’): ‘Santo Stefano’.1 The Turner scholar C.F. Bell marked another copy in the same way.2 However, presumably by an oversight, Finberg did not mention this page when he published a revised checklist of this sketchbook’s Venetian subjects in 1930,3 and its full significance was not published until 1974.4

The east end of the substantial church of Santo Stefano is glimpsed from the Ponte San Maurizio, looking north-north-east along the Rio del Santissimo, off the Grand Canal at a notable distance from the subjects around the Piazzetta, Doge’s Palace and Bacino waterfront on previous pages. The alignments suggest Turner’s viewpoint as likely the short bridge linking the narrow Calle del Piovan with the Calle dello Spezier to its west, rather than a boat on the narrow canal itself, which passes through a tunnel directly under Santo Stefano. The focus is on the church, with the roofline of the apse curving down to the right, flanked by loose hints of chimneys, windows and an archway. The bridge itself (the only one between the church and the Grand Canal, behind the viewpoint) is apparently represented, but so summarily that it may be no more than a diagrammatic reminder to Turner of where he stood, reinforced by his written note.5

The artist made few drawings of such relatively out-of-the-way Venetian subjects,6 but this glimpsed subject clearly made an impression, as it became the basis for a gouache and watercolour sketch on grey paper (Tate D32217; Turner Bequest CCCXVII 32), as first noted by Wilton.7 The scene is there considerably elaborated and expanded to the point of being partly imaginary; nevertheless, the connection with this direct 1840 drawing has been seen as important in terms of dating Venice watercolours in the Turner Bequest to around the time of this last visit, many having previously been linked with the 1833 tour,8 as discussed in the overall Introduction to the present tour.

Although lacking the ‘a’ suffix usually indicating the verso of a leaf in the numbering sequence of Finberg’s 1909 Inventory,9 this page appears to have always been bound this way round. Its otherwise blank recto is inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘91’ and stamped in black ‘CCCXX – 91’ at the bottom right, in sequence with adjacent leaves. When Tate accession numbers were first assigned, this page was designated D32442, but the redundant number was subsequently cancelled.