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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
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Joseph Mallord William Turner The Ponte della Paglia and Bridge of Sighs from the Bacino, Venice, with Figures and Boats 1833

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Ponte della Paglia and Bridge of Sighs from the Bacino, Venice, with Figures and Boats’ 1833
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 29 Recto:
The Ponte della Paglia and Bridge of Sighs from the Bacino, Venice, with Figures and Boats 1833
D31982
Turner Bequest CCCXIV 29
Pencil on white laid paper, 109 x 203 mm
Inscribed by C.F. Bell in black ink ‘29’ bottom left, descending vertically
Stamped in black ‘CCCXIV – 29’ bottom left, descending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Finberg later annotated his 1909 Inventory entry (‘Bridge, Riva degli Schiavone (?)’), crossing out the latter phrase and adding ‘of Sighs & Ponte della Paglia’,1 adding ‘B. Sighs & P. Paglia’ for good measure.2 The Turner scholar C.F. Bell marked another copy in a similar way.3 The page’s title was amended by Ian Warrell to ‘Figures beside the Ponte della Paglia, with the Bridge of Sighs beyond’ in 2003, in connection with his concurrent Turner and Venice exhibition at Tate Britain.4 The drawing was made with the page turned horizontally.
The viewpoint is just off the broad Molo quay in front of the Palazzo Ducale (Doge’s Palace) on the left, with figures including one perhaps in a dark cloak on its steps, apparently gathered around small boats at the entrance to the Rio del Palazzo, where the conventional Ponte della Paglia spans the Rio del Palazzo to the Riva degli Schiavoni. To the north, the elevated Bridge of Sighs is shown with its scrolled profile, connecting the palace to the New Prisons, their rusticated ground-floor arcade loosely indicated towards the right.
Warrell has linked this drawing, along with folios 5 verso, 24 verso and 30 verso (D31936, D31973, D31985), to the oil painting of Venice, the Bridge of Sighs, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1840 (Tate N00527),5 which shows the view directly down the side canal, notionally from some way out on the Bacino;6 see also folio 9 recto (D31943).
Folios 26 verso to 31 recto (D31977–D31986) may record a continuous short trip between the south-eastern end of the Grand Canal eastwards to this point. For this sketchbook’s general sequence, including Hardy George’s broad overview,7 see its Introduction.

Matthew Imms
May 2019

1
Undated MS note by Finberg (died 1939) in interleaved copy of Finberg 1909, Prints and Drawings Room, Tate Britain, II, p.1013; see also Finberg 1930, p.169.
2
Ibid., opposite p.1013.
3
Undated MS note by Bell (died 1966) in copy of Finberg 1909, Prints and Drawings Room, Tate Britain, II, p.1013.
4
Noted October 2003 in Tate registrars’ files.
5
Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll, The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner, revised ed., New Haven and London 1984, p.235 no.383, pl.386 (colour).
6
See Warrell 2003, pp.116, 263 note 39.
7
See George 1984, pp.13–15.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘The Ponte della Paglia and Bridge of Sighs from the Bacino, Venice, with Figures and Boats 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-ponte-della-paglia-and-bridge-of-sighs-from-the-bacino-r1203660, accessed 16 July 2025.