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 Figures in a Venetian Gondola 1819

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Figures in a Venetian Gondola’ 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 86 Recto:
Figures in a Venetian Gondola 1819
D14331
Turner Bequest CLXXV 3b
Pencil on white wove paper, 112 x 55 mm, made up with modern white wove paper to 112 x 185 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘[?s... Hat]’ top right of original page, ascending vertically
Inscribed in ink ‘3b.’ top right of original page, ascending vertically
Stamped in black ‘CLXXV 3b’ top right of original page and again at top right of modern addition, ascending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This rapid sketch of figures in a gondola was drawn close to the gutter with the page turned vertically. Listed in Finberg’s 1909 Inventory, albeit numbered as if it belonged much earlier in this book book’s foliated sequence,1 this minor study is not mentioned among the book’s contents in Finberg’s 1930 volume on Venice,2 and perhaps remained yet to be bound in.
For other studies of boats in this sketchbook, see under folio 37 recto (D14383).
1
See Finberg 1909, I, p.512.
2
See A.J. Finberg, In Venice with Turner, London 1930, p.166.
Technical notes:
The surviving fragment of the original leaf on which this drawing was made represents perhaps a fifth of its original area. The rest has been made up with similar later paper, probably as part of the general conservation and restoration programme after Turner Bequest works were moved to the British Museum following the 1928 Tate Gallery flood.
Verso:
Blank

Matthew Imms
March 2017

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Figures in a Venetian Gondola 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-figures-in-a-venetian-gondola-r1186591, accessed 26 April 2024.