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 Boats off a Tower and a Domed Church, Venice, Possibly the Campanile of San Marco (St Mark's) and San Giorgio Maggiore, from the Bacino 1840

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Boats off a Tower and a Domed Church, Venice, Possibly the Campanile of San Marco (St Mark's) and San Giorgio Maggiore, from the Bacino’ 1840
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 28 Verso:
Boats off a Tower and a Domed Church, Venice, Possibly the Campanile of San Marco (St Mark’s) and San Giorgio Maggiore, from the Bacino 1840
D31845
Turner Bequest CCCXIII 28a
Pencil on cream wove paper, 123 x 173 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
With the page turned horizontally, Turner focuses on a slightly but assuredly rendered sailing boat (or boats) at the centre, flanked by a distant tower on the left and a dome beside what appears to be a slim spire on the right.
These are perhaps respectively the campanile of San Marco (St Mark’s), with slight indications of the scaffolding then in place around its spire (see the tour Introduction) and the outline of the Palazzo Ducale (Doge’s Palace) below, and the church of San Giorgio Maggiore, both frequently recorded in greater detail elsewhere in this sketchbook and in many other drawings. This would suggest a viewpoint on the west side of the Bacino, ranging north-east and south-east to encompass a much simplified and laterally compressed view.
The tower of St Mark’s is definitely shown on folio 29 recto opposite (D31846).

Matthew Imms
September 2018

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Boats off a Tower and a Domed Church, Venice, Possibly the Campanile of San Marco (St Mark’s) and San Giorgio Maggiore, from the Bacino 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-boats-off-a-tower-and-a-domed-church-venice-possibly-the-r1196740, accessed 26 April 2024.