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 Venice from the Canale di San Marco, with the Campanili of San Giorgio Maggiore and San Marco (St Mark's), and Santa Maria della Salute in the Distance, towards Sunset; a Spire and Trees; a Building and Boats 1840

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Venice from the Canale di San Marco, with the Campanili of San Giorgio Maggiore and San Marco (St Mark's), and Santa Maria della Salute in the Distance, towards Sunset; a Spire and Trees; a Building and Boats’ 1840
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 25 Verso:
Venice from the Canale di San Marco, with the Campanili of San Giorgio Maggiore and San Marco (St Mark’s), and Santa Maria della Salute in the Distance, towards Sunset; a Spire and Trees; a Building and Boats 1840
D31839
Turner Bequest CCCXIII 25a
Pencil on cream wove paper, 123 x 173 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The Turner scholar C.F. Bell annotated Finberg’s 1909 Inventory entry (‘Entrance Grand Canal’): ‘Moonlight’.1 With the page turned horizontally, the main view is from the Canale di San Marco, looking west past the Isola di San Giorgio Maggiore and its church on the left towards the domes of Santa Maria della Salute in the distance, with the sun (pace Bell) sinking low over the Grand Canal; at the centre is the outline of the campanile of San Marco (St Mark’s), its verticals echoed by the masts of boats moored off the Riva degli Schiavoni; folio 26 verso (D31841) includes a somewhat more detailed view from a similar position.
Below are thumbnail sketches of a spire beyond trees (perhaps San Giorgio or St Mark’s from the Giardini Pubblici), and a small waterfront building framed by masts and sails, likely also in the vicinity.
This is one of a several studies in this book (see also folios 16 verso, 22 recto and verso, 29 recto, 32 recto and 41 verso; D31822, D31833–D31834, D31846, D31852, D31871) noted by Ian Warrell as showing the sun setting from around 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.2

Matthew Imms
September 2018

1
Undated MS note by Bell (died 1966) in copy of Finberg 1909, Prints and Drawings Room, Tate Britain, II, p.1010.
2
See Warrell 2003, pp.197, 264 notes 5 and 6.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Venice from the Canale di San Marco, with the Campanili of San Giorgio Maggiore and San Marco (St Mark’s), and Santa Maria della Salute in the Distance, towards Sunset; a Spire and Trees; a Building and Boats 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-venice-from-the-canale-di-san-marco-with-the-campanili-of-r1196734, accessed 01 April 2026.