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 Boats on the Grand Canal, Venice, with the Rialto Bridge and the Campanile of San Bartolomeo 1819

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Boats on the Grand Canal, Venice, with the Rialto Bridge and the Campanile of San Bartolomeo’ 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 39 Recto:
Boats on the Grand Canal, Venice, with the Rialto Bridge and the Campanile of San Bartolomeo 1819
D14387
Turner Bequest CLXXV 39
Pencil on white wove paper, 112 x 185 mm
Partial watermark ‘lee | 13’
Inscribed by John Ruskin in blue ink ‘37’ bottom left, upside down and ‘300’ top left, upside down
Stamped in black ‘CLXXV 39’ top left, upside down
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Finberg subsequently annotated his 1909 Inventory entry (‘Vessels, with Ponte di Rialto in distance’): ‘First glimpse of Rialto’.1 This slight view is to the east; a much more detailed drawing along this stretch is on folio 48 verso (D14406).
For other drawings made in the vicinity and an overview of Turner’s coverage of Venice, see the sketchbook’s Introduction. 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).
1
Undated MS note by A.J. Finberg (died 1939) in interleaved copy of Finberg 1909, Tate Britain Prints and Drawings Room, I, opposite p.513.
Technical notes:
There is a dark, isolated mark towards the top left.

Matthew Imms
March 2017

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Boats on the Grand Canal, Venice, with the Rialto Bridge and the Campanile of San Bartolomeo 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-boats-on-the-grand-canal-venice-with-the-rialto-bridge-and-r1186500, accessed 25 April 2024.