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 Dogana and Santa Maria della Salute, Venice, from the Bacino; San Giorgio Maggiore and the Zitelle 1840

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Dogana and Santa Maria della Salute, Venice, from the Bacino; San Giorgio Maggiore and the Zitelle’ 1840
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 8 Recto:
The Dogana and Santa Maria della Salute, Venice, from the Bacino; San Giorgio Maggiore and the Zitelle 1840
D31805
Turner Bequest CCCXIII 8
Pencil on cream wove paper, 123 x 173 mm
Partial watermark ‘J. Wh’
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘Cit[...] Ri[...]tt[...]’ centre right
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘8’ bottom left, descending vertically
Stamped in black ‘CCCXIII – 8’ bottom left, descending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
There are two subjects here, from the same viewpoint on the Bacino between the Molo and the Isola di San Giorgio Maggiore. At the top is a very slight rendering of the Dogana and the domes of Santa Maria della Salute, seen to the west, as in the upper view on folio 7 verso opposite (D31804).
Below is a view south to the church of San Giorgio, with the portico on its west front (facing west-north-west) to the right of its dome. Beyond to the right, the loosely indicated dome might be taken as that of the Zitelle on the Isola della Giudecca, effectively brought east from its true position proportionately much further to the right. Above to its left and right Turner’s semi-legible inscriptions may refer to it as the ‘Cit[ella]’, as in the title of his 1842 painting The Dogano, San Giorgio, Citella, from the Steps of the Europa (Tate N00372),1 and also seems to mention the Redentore, the second great domed Giudecca church, in reality a long way to the right again on this scale.

Matthew Imms
September 2018

1
Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll, The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner, revised ed., New Haven and London 1984, pp.245–6 no.396, pl.400 (colour).

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘The Dogana and Santa Maria della Salute, Venice, from the Bacino; San Giorgio Maggiore and the Zitelle 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-dogana-and-santa-maria-della-salute-venice-from-the-r1196699, accessed 25 April 2024.