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 Bacino, Venice, from the Canale di San Marco, with San Giorgio Maggiore, Santa Maria della Salute and the Campanile of San Marco (St Mark's) 1819

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Bacino, Venice, from the Canale di San Marco, with San Giorgio Maggiore, Santa Maria della Salute and the Campanile of San Marco (St Mark's)’ 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 61 Verso:
The Bacino, Venice, from the Canale di San Marco, with San Giorgio Maggiore, Santa Maria della Salute and the Campanile of San Marco (St Mark’s) 1819
D14432
Turner Bequest CLXXV 61a
Pencil on white wove paper, 112 x 185 mm
Partial watermark ‘Al | 18’
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘D R | R W | W | R W’ near centre, beside campanile
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The view continues on folio 62 recto opposite (D14433). Finberg subsequently annotated his 1909 Inventory (‘Distant view of Campanile and St. Mark’s’) by crossing out the whole entry and inserting ‘61a. S. Giorgio, with Citella [sic] on left, Salute & entrance Gd. Canal on right’,1 in line with his 1930 book In Venice with Turner, where the overall subject is described as ‘S. Giorgio, with Zitelle beyond on the left, the Salute and entrance of the Grand Canal on the right. Distant view of Ducal palace and Campanile’,2 the latter elements being shown on the opposite page.
See also the entry for the recto (D14431), which Finberg also radically amended from his 1909 entry, reflecting confusion over the sequence of pages removed from this sketchbook for early National Gallery displays. In another copy Finberg again crossed out the title and wrote: ‘S. Giorgio in [...] – Citella [sic] in distance on left, with Dogana & entrance Grand Canal in distance on right’.3 The Turner scholar C.F. Bell annotated another copy: ‘view San Giorgio and the Dogana & Salute from middle of Canal’.4
The viewpoint is the furthest east of Turner’s stations along the Canale di San Marco, looking back from off the Giardini Pubblici, with the domes of the Redentore and Zitelle churches on the Isola della Giudecca in the distance on the left beyond the Isola di San Giorgio Maggiore and its church. At the top left is a slight sketch which may be an inconsequential continuation to the left of the main view. To the right of San Giorgio’s campanile are the domes of Santa Maria della Salute above the Dogana on the far side of the Bacino and buildings along the north side of the entrance to the Grand Canal.
A smaller drawing encompassing the whole of a similar view is on folio 40 verso (D14390). 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.514, with revisions on opposite page.
2
Finberg 1930, p.165.
3
Undated MS note by A.J. Finberg in copy of Finberg 1909, Tate Britain Prints and Drawings Room, I, p.514.
4
Undated MS note by C.F. Bell (died 1966) in copy of Finberg 1909, Tate Britain Prints and Drawings Room, I, p.514.
Technical notes:
There is a slightly darkened band across the page from when the leaf was formerly extracted in order to display the recto (D14432).

Matthew Imms
March 2017

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘The Bacino, Venice, from the Canale di San Marco, with San Giorgio Maggiore, Santa Maria della Salute and the Campanile of San Marco (St Mark’s) 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-bacino-venice-from-the-canale-di-san-marco-with-san-r1186544, accessed 23 April 2024.