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

Finberg later annotated his basic 1909 Inventory entry (‘Venice’): ‘from Hotel de l’Europe. Campanile in distance’.1 The Turner scholar C.F. Bell marked his own copy: ‘from the roof of the Hotel Europa’.2 Turner was staying at the Europa (the Palazzo Giustinian; see the Introduction to this subsection), and the viewpoint here seems to have been either his room, apparently high up at the north-eastern corner, or the roof above it, looking north-east to the campanile of San Marco (St Mark’s) on the left, pale and rosy beyond buildings in violet late afternoon shadow, with loose stokes of strong green at the bottom right indicating the waters of the Bacino to the south east. The tower is seen through a window in Tate D32219 (Turner Bequest CCCXVII 34). Compare also Tate D32142, D32179, D32224, D32229, D32254, D35882 and D35949 in the present grouping (Turner Bequest CCCXVI 5, 42, CCCXVIII 5, 10, CCCXIX 6, CCCLXIV 43, 106).3

Not only the architecture caught Turner’s eye, and D32179 and D32224 also appear to show women through neighbouring attic windows.4 Here, in a similar setting to D32142, where washing is shown drying between the chimneys,5 three maids or laundresses are shown in the open, as Ian Warrell has observed: ‘a woman wearing a mob-cap has her back to the viewer as she engages the attention of a seated figure, who in turn glances over her shoulder to stare in Turner’s direction. Meanwhile, a third face peers above the rooftops’,6 to candid and slightly comic effect. In both works the foreground is likely the roof of the Palazzo Vallaresso Erizzo (now the Hotel Monaco), immediately east of the Europa.

Turner’s ‘This [?belongs] to the Beppo Club’ on the verso is one of three similar inscriptions on the backs of 1840 Venice sheets (see also under Tate D32158, D40176; Turner Bequest CCCXVI 21, 37 verso). Ian Warrell has related them to Lord Byron’s 1818 poem Beppo: An Italian Story, a ‘playful evocation of the licentiousness of the Venetian carnival’;7 lines Warrell quotes from stanza XI8 seem ironically applicable to the typically cursory treatment of the two faces turned to the viewer: ‘They’ve pretty faces yet, those same Venetians, | Black-eyes, arch’d brows, and sweet expressions still’.

Finberg noted in his 1909 Inventory that this might be a ‘sketch’9 for the painting Juliet and her Nurse, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1836 (private collection; engraved in 1842 as ‘St Mark’s Place, Venice’: Tate impression T05188).10 Numerous watercolours (often night scenes) now associated with Turner’s 1840 stay in Venice were once considered likely preparatory studies for it, with its view eastwards from high above the Piazza San Marco (St Mark’s Square) observed by the two named characters from a notional platform or balcony in the foreground; see the Introduction to the present tour. Andrew Wilton noted ‘no precise connection’,11 and while leaving its date uncertain between Turner’s two stays in Venice in 1833 and 1840, Lindsay Stainton suggested that ‘evocative ... of the key foreground detail’ as the present scene seems, this ‘may, however, simply be coincidental’.12 The paper is similar to many others since accepted as associated with 1840, as discussed below.

Technical notes:

There is a prominent finger print at the bottom centre within the darkest area of wash, possibly indicating that Turner was quickly lifting out excess paint; he also appears to have used the flat of his palm in the lighter areas to the left and right.

This is one of numerous 1840 Venice works Ian Warrell has noted as on sheets of ‘white paper produced [under the name] Charles Ansell,1 each measuring around 24 x 30 cm, several watermarked with the date “1828”’:2 Tate D32138–D32139, D32141–D32143, D32145–D32147, D32154–D32163, D32167–D32168, D32170–D32177, D35980, D36190 (Turner Bequest CCCXVI 1, 2, 4–6, 8–10, 17–26, 30, 31, 33–40, CCCLXIV 137, 332). Warrell has also observed that The Doge’s Palace and Piazzetta, Venice (National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin)3 and Venice: The New Moon (currently untraced)4 ‘may belong to this group’.5

Verso:

Blank; inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘This [?belongs] to the Beppo Club’ top centre, and ‘14 V’ bottom left; inscribed in pencil ‘22’ centre, and ‘14’ bottom right; stamped in black with Turner Bequest monogram over ‘CCCXVI – 36’ towards bottom left. For the possible significance of numerous ‘V’ inscriptions on separate Venice sheets, see the Introduction to this tour.