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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1830-35 Annual tourist > Southern Germany, Austria and Venice ... > Venice Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner The Interior of the Basilica of San Marco (St Mark's), Venice, from below the Dome of the Pentecost: The Vaulted Ceiling 1833

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Interior of the Basilica of San Marco (St Mark's), Venice, from below the Dome of the Pentecost: The Vaulted Ceiling’ 1833
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 53 Verso:
The Interior of the Basilica of San Marco (St Mark’s), Venice, from below the Dome of the Pentecost: The Vaulted Ceiling 1833
D32030
Turner Bequest CCCXIV 53a
Pencil on white laid paper, 109 x 203 mm
Partial watermark: crescent moon with face in profile
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
With the pages turned horizontally, this is the upper half of a vertical double-page view inside the cavernous Byzantine basilica of San Marco (St Mark’s), continued across folio 54 recto opposite (D32031). Turner had entered through the western Arch of Paradise; see under folio 51 verso (D32026), where which related views are noted.1 For this sketchbook’s somewhat convoluted general sequence, see its Introduction.
Turner was standing under the golden mosaicked Pentecost dome, the first of three running towards the east end of the church; for this part of the drawing, he looked up to into the dome, cursorily indicating a couple of the twelve radiating figures above sixteen arched windows, and the angels set in the spandrels between the broad soffits of the supporting arches, continued downwards on the other page. Compare a watercolour study on brown paper associated with the 1840 visit, showing the view from one side (Tate D32252; Turner Bequest CCCXIX 4).

Matthew Imms
May 2019

1
See also Warrell 2003, pp.20, 260 note 47.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘The Interior of the Basilica of San Marco (St Mark’s), Venice, from below the Dome of the Pentecost: The Vaulted Ceiling 1833 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, May 2019, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, March 2023, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-the-interior-of-the-basilica-of-san-marco-st-marks-venice-r1203708, accessed 07 October 2025.