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 The Basilica of San Marco (St Mark's), Venice, from the Piazzetta, with the Biblioteca Marciana (Libreria Sansoviniana), Campanile, Torre d'Orologio (Clock Tower) and Palazzo Ducale (Doge's Palace) 1819

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Basilica of San Marco (St Mark's), Venice, from the Piazzetta, with the Biblioteca Marciana (Libreria Sansoviniana), Campanile, Torre d'Orologio (Clock Tower) and Palazzo Ducale (Doge's Palace)’ 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 45 Recto:
The Basilica of San Marco (St Mark’s), Venice, from the Piazzetta, with the Biblioteca Marciana (Libreria Sansoviniana), Campanile, Torre d’Orologio (Clock Tower) and Palazzo Ducale (Doge’s Palace) 1819
D14399
Turner Bequest CLXXV 45
Pencil on white wove paper, 112 x 185 mm
Partial watermark ‘Al | 18’
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘18’ top right, along roofline, and ‘17’ centre right and ‘8’ towards bottom right, beside arches
Inscribed by John Ruskin in blue ink ‘45’ top right and ‘300’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CLXXV 45’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Finberg subsequently annotated one copy of his detailed 1909 Inventory entry (‘S. Marco, with part of Ducal Palace on the right, with Sansovino’s Loggetta on the left’): ‘Merceria opposite’.1 In another he added ‘& the Clock Tower’ after ‘Loggetta’.2 The Turner scholar C.F. Bell marked another copy: ‘and the Torre dell’orologio in the middle’.3 The view is north along the Piazzetta to the east end of the Piazza San Marco (St Mark’s Square), with the Basilica at the centre,4 and the Torre dell’Orologio on the north side to its left. In the right foreground is the Palazzo Ducale (Doge’s Palace), and on the left, an oblique view of the Biblioteca Marciana (Libreria Sansoviniana) with the Loggetta at the foot of the towering campanile beyond. There is a slighter view from a few steps to the east on folio 51 verso (D14412).
Having noted the viewpoint as ‘just in front of what is now the Gran-Caffè Chioggia, level with the fourth and fifth columns of the Ducal palace from the Molo’, Finberg made an exhaustive case study of this drawing, praising the ‘freedom, ease and certainty of Turner’s pencil line’ and the ‘accuracy with which a mass of unfamiliar details are marshalled’ while noting as ‘a pleasant relief ... a few inaccuracies’,5 particularly in the proportions and features of the complex upper stages of the church.6 He went on:
As a drawing, too, all the details of the portion of the Doge’s palace on the right are incorrect, but most of the errors here are due to Turner’s method of note-taking. Instead of being satisfied to draw only that portion of the palace which came into his field of vision, he must needs make a record of what is round the corner. The dangerous outward thrust of the upper part of the palace is accurately drawn, but the windows of the Sala dello Scrutinio are placed too low and are too small. By rights not more than two of these windows should have been shown, but the balcony window was evidently too interesting and too useful for future compositional purposes to be omitted, and having squeezed it in, it was necessary to remember that there were three windows beyond it.7
He also observed:
The arches on the loggia are wrong in relation both to the windows and to the supporting arches on the ground storey. One arch on the ground should support two on the storey above. To correct his sketch Turner counted the number of loggia arches between the side of the balcony window and the Judgment angle, and put down ‘17’, and the number of bearing arches below, and put down ‘8’. While he was about it he counted the number of forked battlements on the sky-line of the palace, which he made ‘18.’ These figures are correct if we count, as Turner evidently did, from the side of the balcony window.’8
The drawing of the southern end of this side of the Ducal Palace with the Bacino to the south-east on folio 46 verso (D14402) was made from a similar viewpoint. For other drawings made in the vicinity and an overview of Turner’s coverage of Venice, see the sketchbook’s Introduction.
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 Finberg in copy of Finberg 1909, Tate Britain Prints and Drawings Room, I, p.513.
3
Undated MS note by C.F. Bell (died 1966) in copy of Finberg 1909, Tate Britain Prints and Drawings Room, I, p.513.
4
See Warrell 2003, p.125.
5
Finberg 1930, p.31.
6
See ibid., pp.31–2.
7
Ibid., p.32.
8
Ibid.
Technical notes:
There is some spotting and slight abrasion at the outer edge. Three photographs of the page in the ‘1818–1821’ volume of Finberg’s personal, chronologically arranged albums of Turner’s works show that a prominent dark mark at this point was removed in at least two stages.1

Matthew Imms
March 2017

1
A.J. Finberg, ‘Turner’s Work’, no date, Tate Britain Prints and Drawings Room, vol.V, at folio 73.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘The Basilica of San Marco (St Mark’s), Venice, from the Piazzetta, with the Biblioteca Marciana (Libreria Sansoviniana), Campanile, Torre d’Orologio (Clock Tower) and Palazzo Ducale (Doge’s Palace) 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-the-basilica-of-san-marco-st-marks-venice-from-the-piazzetta-r1186512, accessed 20 September 2024.