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

There are four similar studies here, drawn with the page turned horizontally. Finberg later annotated his 1909 Inventory entry (‘Shipping and distant buildings’): ‘Several sk[etches] from Lagoon’.1 The ‘canal Orfano’ he later mentioned in relation to folios 40 recto–44 recto (D31868–D31876)2 runs south from the Canale di San Marco to the more open waters of the Lagoon.

This is the last of this sequence of waterborne views, and apparently the closest to the Riva degli Schiavoni and adjacent quays fronting the Canale di San Marco itself. Although the drawings are slight, the one at the top left appears to show the dome and campanile of San Giorgio Maggiore with Santa Maria della Salute beyond to the west, as a continuation of the wider view below where the campanile and domes of San Marco (St Mark’s) are lightly indicated towards the left; compare the two widest views on folio 43 verso opposite (D31875). The jumbled drawings of bridges and houses below likely continue the prospect to the right.