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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8

Joseph Mallord William Turner Campo Castelforte San Rocco, Venice, with the Scuola Grande di San Rocco beside the Rio della Frescada 1840

Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 37 Recto:
Campo Castelforte San Rocco, Venice, with the Scuola Grande di San Rocco beside the Rio della Frescada 1840
D31862
Turner Bequest CCCXIII 37
Pencil on cream wove paper, 123 x 173 mm
Partial watermark ‘tman
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘Red’ towards top centre
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘37’ top right, ascending vertically
Stamped in black ‘CCCXIII – 37’ top right, ascending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Finberg later annotated his 1909 Inventory entry (‘Castel forte S. Rocco’): ‘Scuola di San Rocco’.1 The Turner scholar C.F. Bell marked another with the same words.2 With the page turned horizontally, the view is south-east along the broad quay of the Campo Castelforte, beside the narrow Rio della Frescada. Beyond the corner of the building in the foreground, the left-hand side is taken up with the south end of the Scuola di San Rocco. The loosely rendered detail at the top right may show the vault of the canalside arcade in the main drawing.
See also folio 36 verso opposite (D31861), showing the view from outside the front of the Scuola. Evidence of Turner’s exploring Venice away from the Grand Canal and the well-known San Marco (St Mark’s) and waterfront settings are relatively uncommon, and Ian Warrell has suggested that on this occasion he was visiting the Scuola’s renowned cycle of paintings by Tintoretto and other Venetian masters.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.1011.
2
Undated MS note by Bell (died 1966) in copy of Finberg 1909, Prints and Drawings Room, Tate Britain, II, p.1011.
3
See Warrell 2003, pp.63, 161, 262 note 62, 264 note 20.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Campo Castelforte San Rocco, Venice, with the Scuola Grande di San Rocco beside the Rio della Frescada 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-campo-castelforte-san-rocco-venice-with-the-scuola-grande-di-r1196757, accessed 28 March 2024.