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 Grand Canal, Venice, with the Rialto Bridge and the Campanile of San Bartolomeo 1840

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Grand Canal, Venice, with the Rialto Bridge and the Campanile of San Bartolomeo’ 1840
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 37 Verso:
The Grand Canal, Venice, with the Rialto Bridge and the Campanile of San Bartolomeo 1840
D31863
Turner Bequest CCCXIII 37a
Pencil on cream wove paper, 123 x 173 mm
Partial watermark ‘tman’
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This very slight view, made with the page turned horizontally, shows the long-familiar sight of the Rialto Bridge to the north-east along the Grand Canal, from about level with San Silvestro, with the campanile of San Bartolomeo just south-east of the bridge at the centre. Compare for example the elaborate study of the scene from Turner’s first visit, in the 1819 Milan to Venice sketchbook (Tate D14406; Turner Bequest CLXXV 48a), and a loose watercolour study from 1840’s Grand Canal and Giudecca book (D32118; CCCXV 2).
There is a similarly rapid view in the opposite direction, likely from about the same point on folio 38 recto opposite (D31864).

Matthew Imms
September 2018

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘The Grand Canal, Venice, with the Rialto Bridge and the Campanile of San Bartolomeo 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-grand-canal-venice-with-the-rialto-bridge-and-the-r1196758, accessed 23 April 2024.