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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > First Italian Tour 1819-20 > Venice to Ancona Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner The Riva di Ca' di Dio, Venice, with the Campanile of St Mark's in the Distance, Santa Maria della Salute, the Dogana and San Giorgio Maggiore across the Bacino, and the Giudecca Beyond 1819

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Riva di Ca' di Dio, Venice, with the Campanile of St Mark's in the Distance, Santa Maria della Salute, the Dogana and San Giorgio Maggiore across the Bacino, and the Giudecca Beyond’ 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 10 Recto:
The Riva di Ca’ di Dio, Venice, with the Campanile of St Mark’s in the Distance, Santa Maria della Salute, the Dogana and San Giorgio Maggiore across the Bacino, and the Giudecca Beyond 1819
D14506
Turner Bequest CLXXVI 10
Pencil on white wove paper, 111 x 184 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘Fondamenta dal Ponte | dal Rio del Arsenale | a Zullo [‘Zuillo’ inserted below] Della Ca di dio’ top centre
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘10’ bottom right (now faint)
Stamped in black ‘CLXXVI – 10’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The drawing continues across folio 9 verso opposite (D14505). The Turner scholar C.F. Bell annotated Finberg’s 1909 Inventory entry (‘Looking along the Riva degli Schiavone from near the Rio dell’ Arsenale’): ‘S. Giorgio l. Ponte della Cà di Dio r.’1 Bell similarly annotated Finberg’s 1930 In Venice with Turner (1930): ‘San Giorgio on the left, the Ponte della Cà d Dio on right’.2
The viewpoint is a little further south-east along the Riva di Ca’ di Dio towards the Rio dell’Arsenale than in the previous double-page prospect (folios 8 verso–9 recto; D14503–D14504), with the Ponte Ca’ di Dio on the right of the main view, which is continued above with what appears to be the vigorously decorated façade with Turkish-style motifs on the Riva di Ca di Dio. Towards the left of the main drawing is a very compressed view of the Riva degli Schiavoni waterfront west as far as the Palazzo Ducale (Doge’s Palace) and the campanile and domes of St Mark’s. The inscription at the top may have been transcribed from a local street sign.
Hardy George has compared a single-page pencil panorama ‘from about the same viewpoint’ in the 1833 Vienna up to Venice (formerly ‘Lintz, Salzburg, Innsbruck, Verona and Venice’) sketchbook (Tate D31570; Turner Bequest CCCXI 79).3 For other drawings made in the vicinity, see the sketchbook’s Introduction.

Matthew Imms
March 2017

1
Undated MS note by C.F. Bell (died 1966) in copy of Finberg 1909, Tate Britain Prints and Drawings Room, I, p.516.
2
Undated MS note by Bell (before 1936) in copy of Finberg 1930, Prints and Drawings Study Room, British Museum, London, p.167, as transcribed by Ian Warrell (undated notes, Tate catalogue files).
3
George 1971, p.85.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘The Riva di Ca’ di Dio, Venice, with the Campanile of St Mark’s in the Distance, Santa Maria della Salute, the Dogana and San Giorgio Maggiore across the Bacino, and the Giudecca Beyond 1819 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, March 2017, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, July 2017, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-the-riva-di-ca-di-dio-venice-with-the-campanile-of-st-marks-r1186241, accessed 17 May 2024.