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

Finberg later annotated his brief 1909 Inventory entry (‘Entrance Grand Canal’): ‘Giudecca – & Doge’s Pal. & Camp^e., from Canal S. Marco’.1 The Turner scholar C.F. Bell marked another copy: ‘Panoramas from a gondola in the Canal di S. Marco’.2 With the page turned horizontally, there are three prospects of skylines full of domes and towers.

At the top, the view ranges north-west and north to the Dogana, silhouetted against the sinking sun, with the campanile of Santo Stefano, San Moisè and San Marco (St Mark’s, cut off at the outer edge), with the Palazzo Ducale (Doge’s Palace), Bridge of Sighs and New Prisons on the right.

Across the middle the view is to the west, with the Zitelle and Redentore churches on the south side of the Canale della Giudecca, and Santa Maria della Salute shaded to the north-west above the porch of the Dogana, linking back to the left-hand side of the top sketch. Squeezed in at the bottom is a continuation from the right-hand side of the latter, looking north and north-east to the Riva degli Schiavoni waterfront, with the Bridge of Sighs and New Prisons again, the Hotel Danieli (Palazzo Dandolo), and the churches of San Zaccaria, San Giorgio dei Greci, and the Pietà; compare the annotated view including these on folio 17 verso (D31824).

This is one of a several studies in this book (see also folios 16 verso, 22 verso, 25 verso, 29 recto, 32 recto and 41 verso; D31822, D31834, D31839, D31846, D31852, D31871) noted by Ian Warrell as showing the sun setting from the vicinity of San Giorgio Maggiore in connection with an anecdote by the watercolourist William Callow (1812–1908), who recalled relaxing in a gondola and seeing Turner still busy working at that late hour, sketching the church from another boat.3

Technical notes:

Incongruously dark strokes at the bottom right are possibly owning to a reaction with glue used on the verso (D31834) to repair a slight tear at this point.