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

The drawing was made with the page turned horizontally. Although slight enough to elude Finberg,1 the subject is depicted in enough detail, as confirmed by Ian Warrell,2 to be recognisable as a view south across the Grand Canal, looking down the Rio della Salute towards the left (with a tree in the distance) alongside the massive Baroque forms of Santa Maria della Salute’s west flank.

The zig-zag stroke towards the centre hints at the interlaced Gothic brickwork below the eaves at the apsidal east end of the former abbey church of San Gregorio. Below to the right are the gothic windows flanking the Grand Canal entrance to its cloister, with slight indications of the sculpted relief panel which survives over the doorway. The upper storey now features large windows at the corner overlooking the rio, and the neo-Gothic Palazzo Genovese stands immediately adjacent to the right. Compare the wider view on folio 80 recto (D32077), the right-hand portion of which corresponds with this one.

Folio 91 verso (D32097), a similarly rapid sketch, shows the buildings towards the entrance to the canal, just east of the Salute. For this sketchbook’s somewhat convoluted general sequence, see its Introduction; as noted there, Turner was likely staying within sight of the church at the Hotel Europa (Palazzo Giustinian). Compare the hazily atmospheric, sunlit watercolour of The North-Western Façade of Santa Maria della Salute, Seen from the Grand Canal (National Gallery of Scotland),3 from the so-called ‘Storm’ sketchbook of 1840 (see the Introduction to that tour in the present catalogue).