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 Rialto Bridge on the Grand Canal, Venice, with the Fondaco dei Tedeschi Beyond 1819

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Rialto Bridge on the Grand Canal, Venice, with the Fondaco dei Tedeschi Beyond’ 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 78 Verso:
The Rialto Bridge on the Grand Canal, Venice, with the Fondaco dei Tedeschi Beyond 1819
D14465
Turner Bequest CLXXV 78a
Pencil on white wove paper, 112 x 185 mm
Partial watermark ‘lee | 13’
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘Cap Red’ towards bottom left, above figure, ‘[?del ...]’ right of centre, perhaps on sign, and ‘Fish Market’ centre right
Inscribed in pencil ‘78a’ top right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Inverted relative to the sketchbook’s foliation, the drawing continues on folio 79 recto opposite (D14466). The Turner scholar C.F. Bell annotated Finberg’s 1909 Inventory entry (‘Ponte di Rialto, with Fondaco de’ Tedeschi and other buildings seen through its arch’): ‘from the Canal’.1
The viewpoint is below the north end of the south-west side of the bridge, looking diagonally eastwards through its single arch. On the right on this page are buildings on the Riva del Ferro, remaining much the same today. The balcony at the top right now belongs to the Hotel Rialto, while the tall, narrow arch at the centre is at the entrance to the Calle Bombasei. The upper level of the buildings and their roofs is continued as a separate detail on the opposite page. There is a quick sketch made from the foot of the steps to the bridge on this side in the contemporary Route to Rome sketchbook (Tate D13870; Turner Bequest CLXXI 6a), taking in the whole of the bridge itself set against a cursory version of the skyline.
Although Martin Butlin2 related the overall view to the very large but unfinished painting The Rialto, Venice of about 1820 (Tate N05543),3 it shows a prospect under the bridge looking in the opposite direction based on the drawing on folios 80 verso–81 recto (D14469–D14470), and is discussed under those pages.
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 C.F. Bell (died 1966) in copy of Finberg 1909, Tate Britain Prints and Drawings Room, I, p.515.
2
See Butlin 1974, p.86; and Butlin and Joll 1984, p.152.
3
Butlin and Joll 1984, p.152 no.245, pl.248.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘The Rialto Bridge on the Grand Canal, Venice, with the Fondaco dei Tedeschi Beyond 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-rialto-bridge-on-the-grand-canal-venice-with-the-fondaco-r1186577, accessed 20 September 2024.