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 ... > Venice and Botzen Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner The Piazza San Marco (St Mark's Square), Venice, with the Torre dell'Orologio (Clock Tower), Campanile and Basilica, and Palazzo Ducale (Doge's Palace) 1840

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Piazza San Marco (St Mark's Square), Venice, with the Torre dell'Orologio (Clock Tower), Campanile and Basilica, and Palazzo Ducale (Doge's Palace)’ 1840
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 2 Recto:
The Piazza San Marco (St Mark’s Square), Venice, with the Torre dell’Orologio (Clock Tower), Campanile and Basilica, and Palazzo Ducale (Doge’s Palace) 1840
D31793
Turner Bequest CCCXIII 2
Pencil on cream wove paper, 123 x 173 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘C L[...] Camp [... ?T...]’ towards bottom right
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘2’ bottom left, descending vertically
Stamped in black ‘CCCXIII – 2’ bottom left, descending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
With the page turned horizontally, the view is from near the south-west corner of the Piazza San Marco (St Mark’s Square), looking east-north-east. The Torre dell’Orologio (clock tower) is on the left, with the prominent flagpoles in front of the Basilica towards the centre, with the diaper-patterned west front of the Palazzo Ducale (Doge’s Palace) between the campanile and the Procuratie Nuove, receding sharply on the right. Compare the more detailed study in the 1819 Milan to Venice sketchbook (Tate D14397; Turner Bequest CLXXV 44).
Finberg later annotated his 1909 Inventory entry (‘Campanile and St. Mark’s’): ‘scaffolding on cuspida’;1 the Turner scholar C.F. Bell similarly noted: ‘scaffolding on cuspide’.2 The presence of scaffolding around the spire is a recurring factor in dating the Venice views from the 1840 visit (see the Introduction to the tour).

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, opposite p.1009.
2
Undated MS note by Bell (died 1966) in copy of Finberg 1909, Prints and Drawings Room, Tate Britain, II, p.1009.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘The Piazza San Marco (St Mark’s Square), Venice, with the Torre dell’Orologio (Clock Tower), Campanile and Basilica, and 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-piazza-san-marco-st-marks-square-venice-with-the-torre-r1196687, accessed 23 April 2024.