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

Finberg later annotated his 1909 Inventory entry (‘On the Grand Canal – “Razzonico,” “Foscari,” “Grimani,” “Grassi,” and “S. Samuele.”’): ‘V. Gd. Canal. Rezz. Frari, Grimani, S. Samuele’.1 The drawing was made with the page turned horizontally. The view is to the north along the south-western reach of the Grand Canal, from near the west side. Turner had made a detailed two-page study from slightly further forward in his 1819 Milan to Venice sketchbook (Tate D14450–D14451; Turner Bequest CLXXV 70a–71).

Here, he was stationed near the Palazzo Moro a San Barnaba, beside the entrance to the Rio del Malpaga. Receding along the west, in the left foreground is the low front of the Palazzetto Stern, subsequently extended upwards, followed by the Palazzo Contarini Michiel below the larger, heavily articulated Ca’ Rezzonico (now a museum of eighteenth-century Venice). Several other palaces are elided obliquely beyond, ending with the taller Ca’ Foscari before the turn to the right towards the Rialto. The campanile of the Frari is then seen to their left, about the same distance on again. Facing this way at the end is the lightly shaded south-east front of the Palazzo Balbi with the smaller Palazzo Caotorta Angaran beside it and only slight indications of the Palazzo Civran Grimani, which seems to have caught Turner’s eye to judge by one of his annotations: ‘Grimani | w’ (for its white stone).

Returning down the east side, the Palazzi Moro Lin is not shown in detail. The classical canal front of the Palazzo Grassi is next, with its plainer south side petering out towards the right, overlooking the Campo San Samuele. A detail of the spire of San Samuele’s campanile is introduced at the far right; in reality it would be just beyond the edge of the page and above the palace’s roofline.

There is a half-page study from opposite the Campo San Samuele on folio 85 verso opposite (D32087), with the side of the Grassi and the canal front of the Palazzo Malipiero, out of sight to the right here. The latter can be seen in the similar overall view from a little further south on the verso (D32089), and in the left foreground of a view south along the same reach on folio 3 verso (D31933). 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, including Hardy George’s broad overview,2 see the Introduction.

In 1840, Turner made similar views, with a slight pencil drawing in the Venice and Botzen book (Tate D31917; Turner Bequest CCCXIII 64a) and a watercolour study in the Grand Canal and Giudecca book (D32134; CCCXV 18).3