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 Views with Shipping off the Riva degli Schiavoni, Venice, with the Campanile of San Marco (St Mark's) in the Distance 1840

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Views with Shipping off the Riva degli Schiavoni, Venice, with the Campanile of San Marco (St Mark's) in the Distance’ 1840
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 51 Recto:
Views with Shipping off the Riva degli Schiavoni, Venice, with the Campanile of San Marco (St Mark’s) in the Distance 1840
D31890
Turner Bequest CCCXIII 51
Pencil on cream wove paper, 123 x 173 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘Ponte de P[?ieta]’ towards bottom right
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘51’ top right, ascending vertically
Stamped in black ‘CCCXIII – 51’ top right, ascending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
With the page turned horizontally, there are two related drawings here. Finberg later annotated his basic 1909 Inventory entry (‘Shipping and distant buildings’): ‘2 sk[etches] from basin of S. Marco’.1 Above is a laterally compressed, somewhat frenetic panorama of the familiar scene, ranging south across the Bacino to the campanile and dome of San Giorgio Maggiore on the left, with tiny indications of the domes of the Giudecca churches beyond a forest of masts. Towards the centre is the dome of Santa Maria della Salute to the west, with the soaring campanile of San Marco (St Mark’s) next above the Riva degli Schiavoni waterfront, running east towards the right.
The tiny crescent stroke at the top left indicates the newly waxing moon, as seen in two contemporary Venetian colour studies (Tate D32225 D32230; Turner Bequest CCCXVIII 6, 11). During Turner’s 20 August–3 September 1840 stay in Venice this phase coincided with the second week, between the new moon on 27 August and its first quarter on the day he left.2
Below is an expanded variant of the right-hand half of the upper sketch, looking west along the Riva to the campanile from off the Ponte della Pietà, labelled towards the bottom right. Compare the slightly more detailed view on folio 50 verso opposite (D31889).

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
See ‘Moon Phases for Venice, Italy’, timeanddate.com, accessed 6 September 2018, https://www.timeanddate.com/moon/phases/italy/venice?year=1840.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Views with Shipping off the Riva degli Schiavoni, Venice, with the Campanile of San Marco (St Mark’s) in the Distance 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-views-with-shipping-off-the-riva-degli-schiavoni-venice-with-r1196785, accessed 25 April 2024.