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 Studies of Venice from the Bacino, Canale della Giudecca and Canale di San Marco, with the Setting Sun 1819

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Studies of Venice from the Bacino, Canale della Giudecca and Canale di San Marco, with the Setting Sun’ 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 49 Verso:
Studies of Venice from the Bacino, Canale della Giudecca and Canale di San Marco, with the Setting Sun 1819
D14408
Turner Bequest CLXXV 49a
Pencil on white wove paper, 112 x 185 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘Blue’ and ‘W’ above right of centre, ‘[...]’ centre left, and ‘Cold’ below right of centre
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Finberg somewhat redundantly annotated his 1909 Inventory entry (‘Various sketches of the Campanile and Towers of St. Mark’s, and the entrance to the Grand Canal, with San Giorgio and the Salute’): ‘Various sketches of Salute, Doge’s Pal. & Campanile, San Giorgio &c’.1
Six swift views are arranged in a grid, divided here and there by pencil lines. At the top left are the domes of Santa Maria della Salute and the porch of the Dogana with the campanile of St Mark’s to the north-east across the Bacino beyond, from the Canale della Giudecca. At the top right is a view north over the water to the Piazzetta flanked by the campanile and domes of the basilica of St Mark’s, with the Palazzo Ducale (Doge’s Palace) below to the right. The settings and orientation of the two central shipping studies is less certain.
Below are two laterally compressed variations of the view from the Canale di San Marco east of the island and church of San Giorgio Maggiore, flanked by its campanile on the left and St Mark’s away to the north-west on the right, with the domes of the Salute coming into view in the second study. As Ian Warrell has noted,2 the disks in the first and last drawings (the latter with a zigzag reflection) indicate the setting sun. There are more detailed studies from similar viewpoints, presumably made on the same occasion, on folio 50 verso (D14410).
For other drawings made in the vicinity and an overview of Turner’s coverage of Venice, see the sketchbook’s Introduction.

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, opposite p.513.
2
Undated note in Tate catalogue files.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Studies of Venice from the Bacino, Canale della Giudecca and Canale di San Marco, with the Setting Sun 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-studies-of-venice-from-the-bacino-canale-della-giudecca-and-r1186521, accessed 25 April 2024.