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

Finberg later annotated his 1909 Inventory entry (‘On the Giudecca (?)’): ‘no’.1 The Turner scholar C.F. Bell marked another copy in the same way,2 without offering an alternative. The drawing was made with the page turned horizontally.

Somewhat loosely rendered for the most part, the view appears to be from off the unfinished front of the church of San Marcuola, in the left foreground, on the north side of the Grand Canal east of the more prominent San Geremia (see folio 81 recto; D32079). From here, the canal curves gradually to the right, eventually reaching the Rialto bend to the south-east, as seen on folio 77 verso opposite (D32072). Beyond the group of miscellaneous buildings past the church, the block with the grid-like oblique façade belongs to the Ca’ Vendramin Calergi (now housing the Casino). The palace frontages to its east are less distinctive, and the next landmark, shown on a grossly exaggerated scale, is the Baroque campanile of Santi Apostoli, to the east-south-east, not far from the Rialto.

Returning along the south side, the most carefully drawn element is the north-west corner of the Palazzo Belloni Battagia, with the two prominent, widely spaced obelisks over its canal-side façade almost merging from this angle. Coming forward, the relatively plain outline of the Fondaco del Megio is followed by looping, cursory forms indicating the triangular gables and long upper loggia of the Fondaco dei Turchi (now the city’s natural history museum, and extensively restored), opposite the church. Turner did not linger over the scene on this occasion, likely having already made the more detailed drawing from a similar position on folio 58 recto (D32039), under which the subject and related views are discussed further. See under folio 74 verso (D32066), for the long series of Grand Canal views in this part of the sketchbook; for its somewhat convoluted general sequence, see the Introduction.