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 Bacino, Venice, with the Zitelle and Redentore along the Canale della Giudecca; Distant Views of Santa Maria della Salute 1840

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Bacino, Venice, with the Zitelle and Redentore along the Canale della Giudecca; Distant Views of Santa Maria della Salute’ 1840
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 17 Recto:
The Bacino, Venice, with the Zitelle and Redentore along the Canale della Giudecca; Distant Views of Santa Maria della Salute 1840
D31823
Turner Bequest CCCXIII 17
Pencil on cream wove paper, 123 x 173 mm
Partial watermark ‘atman’
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘St [?Biagio]’ bottom left, upside down
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘17’ bottom left, descending vertically
Stamped in black ‘CCCXIII – 17’ bottom left, descending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Finberg later annotated his 1909 Inventory entry (‘Views from the canal’), transcribing Turner’s inscription as ‘“San Biagio”’.1 He noted: ‘3 sk[etches]. 1 of Citella on l. with Salute on right’. The Turner scholar C.F. Bell marked another copy with Turner’s words.2
The vantage point, on the Bacino west of the Isola di San Giorgio Maggiore, is similar to that used for the views west and north towards the Salute and San Marco on folio 16 verso opposite (D31822). Here, the main subject is the churches of the Zitelle, to the south-west, and the Redentore, further off to the west-south-west, facing the Canale della Giudecca on the island of the same name. Above appears to be a loose rendering of the north side of the canal, centred on the Salute to the west, with campanili north of the Grand Canal towards the right.
Below, the other way up at the outer edge, the view seems to be similar, encompassing the Redentore on the left and the Salute on the right. The inscription at the corner, apparently ‘St Biagio’, likely refers to the church of Santi Biagio e Cataldo, which then stood overlooking the canal towards the western end of the Isola della Giudecca; see folio 33 recto (D31854), and a watercolour study in the contemporary Grand Canal and Giudecca sketchbook (Tate D32128; Turner Bequest CCCXV 12).
Ian Warrell has noted that 1840 Giudecca studies such as those here, on folios 30 verso–33 recto (D31849–D31854) and in the Venice; Passau to Würzburg sketchbook (Tate D31288–D31293; Turner Bequest CCCX 6a–9) show how Turner ‘really began to see that this previously neglected quarter offered original ways of seeing Venice’.3

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.1010.
2
Undated MS note by Bell (died 1966) in copy of Finberg 1909, Prints and Drawings Room, Tate Britain, II, p.1010.
3
Warrell 2003, pp.179, 264 note 4.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘The Bacino, Venice, with the Zitelle and Redentore along the Canale della Giudecca; Distant Views of Santa Maria della Salute 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-bacino-venice-with-the-zitelle-and-redentore-along-the-r1196717, accessed 25 April 2024.