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

Finberg subsequently annotated his 1909 Inventory entry (‘Looking towards the canale di S. Marco, with the Dogana on the right’): ‘Looking from the Grand Canal twds S. Giorgio, with Dogana on the right, with P. Cavelli on left. (View from Traghetto S. Vitale.)’.1 In another copy he wrote: ‘(my view, from Gd. Hotel)’.2 The Turner scholar C.F. Bell a further copy: ‘from the middle of the Grand Canal opposite the steps of the Salute’.3 Inverted relative to the sketchbook’s foliation, the view is east-south-east across the entrance of the canal, close to the north side and positioned opposite the porch of Santa Maria Salute, outside the Palazzo Contarini Fasan; the building at the far left, with prominent ground- and first-floor arches and a low loggia beyond, is the Palazzo Giustinian Michiel Alvise.4 To the right is the Dogana, with the dome and campanile of San Giorgio Maggiore at the centre across the Bacino, looking deceptively close.

The degree of detail varies across the page, as Turner is unusually also concerned here, among more straightforward architectural records, with passing pictorial effects of light and reflection. As Finberg described it: ‘The sun in the west is shining full on S. Giorgio and the palaces on our left, while the buildings of the Dogana are in shadow. The light and shade are indicated in the slightest way, but what is drawn is eked out with various queer little scribbled remarks’5 which Finberg transcribed and interpreted, although his cryptic reading ‘the Red of the Pear excepting the Flag’,6 possibly keyed to an ‘x’ marked on San Giorgio’s red brick tower, is uncertain.

For other drawings made in the vicinity and an overview of Turner’s coverage of Venice, see the sketchbook’s Introduction.

Technical notes:

There is a blob of what appears to be orange paint at the bottom right, a little of which is offset onto folio 63 recto opposite (D14435).