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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1836-47 Modern painter > Venice, Austria and Southern Germany ... > Rotterdam to Venice Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner The Porta della Carta Arcade, Leading to the Scala dei Giganti (Giants' Stairway) in the Courtyard of the Palazzo Ducale (Doge's Palace) 1840

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Porta della Carta Arcade, Leading to the Scala dei Giganti (Giants' Stairway) in the Courtyard of the Palazzo Ducale (Doge's Palace)’ 1840
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 90 Verso:
The Porta della Carta Arcade, Leading to the Scala dei Giganti (Giants’ Stairway) in the Courtyard of the Palazzo Ducale (Doge’s Palace) 1840
D32440
Turner Bequest CCCXX 90a
Pencil on white wove paper, 89 x 149 mm
Partial watermark ‘& C’
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Finberg later annotated his 1909 unspecific Inventory entry, crossing out ‘Interior of building’ in favour of ‘St. Marks atrium’,1 publishing his revision as ‘Interior of S. Mark’s’.2 The Turner scholar C.F. Bell marked another copy of the Inventory: ‘Atrium of St Mark’s’.3
Rather than the interior the Basilica of San Marco (St Mark’s) itself, as seen in a contemporary colour study on brown paper (Tate D32241; Turner Bequest CCCXVIII 22), this horizontal drawing shows the view east through the adjacent arcade leading from the Porta della Carta doorway of the Palazzo Ducale (Doge’s Palace; see folio 87 verso; D32434), running between the palace on the right and the church on the left.
Towards the left, the Arco Foscari frames schematic vertical indications of the Scala dei Giganti (Giants’ Staircase), with the palace’s courtyard seen at an angle through the arches on the right. There is a detailed view of the staircase itself on folio 89 verso (D32438), and a smaller study looking the other way on folio 88 recto (D32435).
Compare a contemporary gouache and watercolour study on grey paper, showing the same view (Tate D32181; Turner Bequest CCCXVII 2).

Matthew Imms
September 2018

1
Undated MS note by Finberg (died 1939) in interleaved copy of Finberg 1909, Prints and Drawings Room, Tate Britain, II, p.1033.
2
Finberg 1930, p.171.
3
Undated MS note by Bell (died 1966) in copy of Finberg 1909, Prints and Drawings Room, Tate Britain, II, p..

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘The Porta della Carta Arcade, Leading to the Scala dei Giganti (Giants’ Stairway) in the Courtyard of the Palazzo Ducale (Doge’s Palace) 1840 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, September 2018, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2019, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-the-porta-della-carta-arcade-leading-to-the-scala-dei-r1196674, accessed 27 April 2024.