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: St Mark's Square, the Piazzetta ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner The Bacino Waterfront, Venice, by Moonlight, with the Campanile of San Marco (St Mark's) in the Distance 1840

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Bacino Waterfront, Venice, by Moonlight, with the Campanile of San Marco (St Mark's) in the Distance’ 1840
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
The Bacino Waterfront, Venice, by Moonlight, with the Campanile of San Marco (St Mark’s) in the Distance 1840
D34233
Turner Bequest CCCXLII 41v
Chalk on brown wove paper, 147 x 230 mm
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram towards bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Finberg later annotated his tentative 1909 Inventory entry (‘Buildings beside lake’, in a large grouping of ‘Miscellaneous: black and white’ drawings on ‘Brown Paper’): ‘Cert[ai]n[l]y Venice. Moonlight. Campe. & Schiavoni from Europa’.1 Although very slight, this white chalk sketch clearly shows the eastward prospect to the campanile of San Marco (St Mark’s) and the Bacino waterfront including the Riva degli Schiavoni, with the ghostly forms of boats illuminated by the light of the reflected crescent moon. 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
Whether directly observed or recollected, the scene’s viewpoint appears to be the vicinity of the Hotel Europa (Palazzo Giustinian), where Turner stayed in 1840; see the parallel subsection of views from inside and around it. The present view would have been included there directly but for the presence of another slight Venice subject on the recto (D34232; Turner Bequest CCCXLII 41), more relevant to the St Mark’s grouping. Among the Europa subjects, compare in particular several nocturnal rooftop and waterfront colour studies on brown paper (Tate D32224, D32229, D32238, D32254; Turner Bequest CCCXVIII 5, 10, 19, CCCXIX 6); the first also includes the moon, albeit waning.
1
Undated MS note by Finberg (died 1939) in interleaved copy of Finberg 1909, Prints and Drawings Room, Tate Britain, II, opposite p..
2
See ‘Moon Phases for Venice, Italy’, timeanddate.com, accessed 6 September 2018, https://www.timeanddate.com/moon/phases/italy/venice?year=1840.
Technical notes:
Ian Warrell did not mention this sheet in his near-comprehensive survey of the papers used on Turner’s visits to Venice, including many grey and brown English and Continental sheets used in 1840.1 Cecilia Powell did include it as an example of ‘Italian brown paper’ in her key discussion linking contemporary Venetian and German subjects2 (see the Introduction to the tour).

Matthew Imms
September 2018

1
See Ian Warrell in Warrell, David Laven, Jan Morris and others, Turner and Venice, exhibition catalogue, Tate Britain, London 2003, p.259.
2
See Cecilia Powell, Turner in Germany, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1995, p.161 under no.89, listing the recto’s Turner Bequest number.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘The Bacino Waterfront, Venice, by Moonlight, 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-the-bacino-waterfront-venice-by-moonlight-with-the-campanile-r1197054, accessed 19 April 2024.