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

Finberg later annotated his 1909 Inventory entry (‘Buildings at night (?)’): ‘with crescent moon’.1 The Turner scholar C.F. Bell marked another copy in the same way.2 The drawing was made with the page turned horizontally. Ian Warrell identified the loosely rendered subject3 as a view west from near the south-eastern entrance of the Grand Canal. Adjacent pages show the church of Santa Maria della Salute (out of sight here, to the left and slightly behind the viewpoint). See for example folio 74 verso opposite (D32066), under which a long series of Grand Canal views in this part of the sketchbook is discussed; for its somewhat convoluted general sequence, see the Introduction.

The most prominent feature on the right is the imposing Palazzo (or Ca’) Corner della Ca’ Granda, seen obliquely and shaded against the evening sky, inferred from the low waxing crescent moon over the canal. As discussed under D32066, where it is seen in two of four slight views including a smaller variant of this one, its presence indicates that the drawings were made a few days after the new moon of Friday 13 September, towards the end of Turner’s 1833 stay.

The fading light likely explains the relatively rough, rapid handling, with only selective details. These apparently include the arched Gothic windows of the Palazzo Marin Contarini in the right foreground, with the Palazzi Barbarigo Minotto and Barbarigo left largely blank to their left, and the Palazzo Grimani with its arched windows in the right foreground, along the stretch between the Palazzo Corner and the Santa Maria del Giglio traghetto, about level with Turner’s position.

On the left, features include the low, half-finished classical façade of the Palazzo Venier dei Leoni (now housing the Peggy Guggenheim collection), with the east side of a continuous run of taller palaces beginning with the Centani Morosini beyond.