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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1836-47 Modern painter > Venice, Austria and Southern Germany ... > Venice and Botzen Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner The Riva degli Schiavoni, Venice, from the Bacino, with the Church of San Zaccaria, and the Campanili of San Giorgio dei Greci and San Marco (St Mark's) 1840

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Riva degli Schiavoni, Venice, from the Bacino, with the Church of San Zaccaria, and the Campanili of San Giorgio dei Greci and San Marco (St Mark's)’ 1840
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 50 Verso:
The Riva degli Schiavoni, Venice, from the Bacino, with the Church of San Zaccaria, and the Campanili of San Giorgio dei Greci and San Marco (St Mark’s) 1840
D31889
Turner Bequest CCCXIII 50a
Pencil on cream wove paper, 123 x 173 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The drawing was made with the page turned horizontally. Presumably by association with the view of the church of Santi Giovanni e Paolo on folio 49 verso (D31887), the Turner scholar C.F. Bell annotated Finberg’s noncommittal 1909 Inventory entry (‘Distant buildings’): ‘Fondamente Nuove Rio dei Mendicanti’.1
However, the prospect is actually from off the Riva degli Schiavoni, looking north from the Bacino, as in the sketches on folio 51 recto opposite (D31890), with the campanile of San Giorgio dei Greci at the far right up the Rio dei Greci beyond the Ponte della Pietà, the dome and shorter campanile of the church of San Zaccaria next left, and then the Riva waterfront stretching away towards the less detailed outlines of the domes and campanile of San Marco (St Mark’s) to the west. The viewpoint appears to be from some way off the quays, and the cluster of objects in the foreground, likely cargo goods, seems to constitute a separate detail.
Compare the right-hand half with the views on folios 8 verso and 9 recto (D31806–D31807). The view is similar to that in a contemporary watercolour of Venice: The Riva degli Schiavoni (Ashmolean Museum),2 from the dispersed ‘Storm’ sketchbook; see the introduction to the Grand Canal and Giudecca book (Tate; Turner Bequest CCCXV).

Matthew Imms
September 2018

1
Undated MS note by Bell (died 1966) in copy of Finberg 1909, Prints and Drawings Room, Tate Britain, II, p.1011.
2
Andrew Wilton, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work, Fribourg 1979, p.464 no.1364, reproduced.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘The Riva degli Schiavoni, Venice, from the Bacino, with the Church of San Zaccaria, and the Campanili of San Giorgio dei Greci and San Marco (St Mark’s) 1840 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, September 2018, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2019, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-the-riva-degli-schiavoni-venice-from-the-bacino-with-the-r1196784, accessed 04 April 2026.