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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > First Italian Tour 1819-20 > Milan to Venice Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Gondolas, ?on the Grand Canal, Venice, with the Palazzo Balbi 1819

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Gondolas, ?on the Grand Canal, Venice, with the Palazzo Balbi’ 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 38 Recto:
Gondolas, ?on the Grand Canal, Venice, with the Palazzo Balbi 1819
D14385
Turner Bequest CLXXV 38
Pencil on white wove paper, 112 x 185 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘Pal [?Babi]’ top right
Inscribed by John Ruskin in blue ink ‘38’ top left, upside down and ‘300’ top left, upside down
Stamped in black ‘CLXXV 38’ top left, upside down
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Finberg subsequently annotated his 1909 Inventory entry (‘Gondolas passing the Barbarigo (?) Palace, Venice’), crossing out ‘Barbarigo (?)’ and adding ‘Balbi’ above.1 The Turner scholar C.F. Bell annotated another copy: ‘“Pal Barb”’.2 This may be a very slight, passing impression of the Palazzo Balbi, with its twin obelisk finials; compare folio 70 verso (D14450), where it is shown in detail.
The drawings on folios 37 verso–39 verso (D14384–D14388) are all of a similarly slight character, with more attention paid to the small craft than their settings. For other studies of boats in this sketchbook, see under the recto (D14383).

Matthew Imms
March 2017

1
Undated MS note by A.J. Finberg (died 1939) in interleaved copy of Finberg 1909, Tate Britain Prints and Drawings Room, I, p.513.
2
Undated MS note by C.F. Bell (died 1966) in copy of Finberg 1909, Tate Britain Prints and Drawings Room, I, p.513.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Gondolas, ?on the Grand Canal, Venice, with the Palazzo Balbi 1819 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, March 2017, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, July 2017, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-gondolas-on-the-grand-canal-venice-with-the-palazzo-balbi-r1186498, accessed 19 September 2024.