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

Finberg later annotated his 1909 Inventory entry (‘Bridge and buildings’): ‘Junction of 2 side canals’.1 The Turner scholar C.F. Bell marked another copy in the same way.2 The drawing was made with the page turned horizontally.

The viewpoint has been identified by Ian Warrell3 as at the corner of the Rio di Santa Marina, receding to the east-south-east on the right, and the Rio dei Mendicanti, to the north-north-east on the left. The main feature of the right-hand half is the Palazzo Morosini a Santa Marina, with its canal façade seen obliquely; compare the frontal view from the Rio del Pestrin, just around the corner to the right, on folio 60 verso opposite (D32044). The distant spire appears to be San Francesco della Vigna’s, although taller buildings now block the view.

The arched windows in the left foreground remain recognisable, and a low garden wall still overlooks the corner, although there is now no sign of the arched features noted there, while a taller building beside the Ponte Rosso beyond obscures the immediate prospect up the east side of the Rio dei Mendicanti to the gabled south front of the Scuola Grande di San Marco; nor are the dome and tall finials at the west end of Santi Giovanni e Paolo visible from this angle.

From folio 59 verso to here (D32042–D32045), Turner briefly explored the network of side canals between the churches of Santa Maria Formosa and Santi Giovanni e Paolo, via the Rio del Pestrin; compare the sequence between folios 31 verso and 36 verso (D31987–D31996). Of those drawings, folios 32 verso and 34 recto (D32989, D31991) are from further forward along the Rio dei Mendicanti, bringing the church and scuola into view, while the very slight sketch on folio 36 recto (D31995) may be related to the present subject. Beginning on folio 61 verso (D32046), there are several views of the Bridge of Sighs, some way to the south, albeit only a few turns away by boat. For this sketchbook’s convoluted general sequence, including Hardy George’s broad overview,4 see its Introduction.