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 Grand Canal, Venice, with the Fondaco dei Turchi 1819

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Grand Canal, Venice, with the Fondaco dei Turchi’ 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 89 Verso:
The Grand Canal, Venice, with the Fondaco dei Turchi 1819
D14484
Turner Bequest CLXXV 88a
Pencil on white wove paper, 112 x 185 mm
Partial watermark ‘Al | 18’
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘Large [?P in] Front | over Landing’ towards bottom left, ‘[?Turkey Boat]’, ‘Yellow’ and ‘Red’ near centre, on and around boat, ‘W’ at centre, on building, ‘W’ and ‘W’ towards centre right, on building, and ‘9’ towards top right, over gables
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Finberg subsequently annotated his basic 1909 Inventory entry (‘On the Grand Canal’): ‘Fondaco de’ Turchi, &c’.1 In another copy he wrote: ‘[?Munl art] Musm’.2 The Turner scholar C.F. Bell marked another copy: ‘The Fondaco dei Turchi on the right Palazzo Vendramin Calergi on the left’.3
Inverted relative to the sketchbook’s foliation, the Fondaco dei Turchi is seen on the right; apparently then in a very poor state4 and subsequently heavily restored with a third storey at each end flanking the ‘9’ gables Turner notes, it is now Venice’s natural history museum. Beyond, the Grand Canal recedes to the south-east, with the twin obelisk pinnacles of the Palazzo Belloni Battagia on the right and the campanile of Santi Apostoli in the distance and the Palazzo or Ca’ Vendramin Calergi, now the host to Venice’s Casino, at the gutter. The drawing continues part of the way across folio 90 recto opposite (D14485; Turner Bequest CLXXV 89), where the waterfront arcade of the Palazzo Gritti is seen in the foreground.
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, p.515.
2
Undated MS note by Finberg in copy of Finberg 1909, Tate Britain Prints and Drawings Room, I, p.515.
3
Undated MS note by C.F. Bell (died 1966) in copy of Finberg 1909, Tate Britain Prints and Drawings Room, I, p.515.
4
See Finberg 1930, p.50, quoting Ruskin’s despairing 1853 description from E.T. Cook and Alexander Wedderburn (eds.), Library Edition: The Works of John Ruskin: Volume X: The Stones of Venice: Volume II: The Sea-Stories, London 1904, p.145.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘The Grand Canal, Venice, with the Fondaco dei Turchi 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-grand-canal-venice-with-the-fondaco-dei-turchi-r1186597, accessed 25 April 2024.