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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1830-35 Annual tourist > Southern Germany, Austria and Venice ... > Venice Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Study of a Venetian 'Rascona' Cargo Boat; the Basilica and Campanile of San Marco (St Mark's), Venice, from the Porta della Carta of the Palazzo Ducale (Doge's Palace) 1833

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Study of a Venetian 'Rascona' Cargo Boat; the Basilica and Campanile of San Marco (St Mark's), Venice, from the Porta della Carta of the Palazzo Ducale (Doge's Palace)’ 1833
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 2 Verso:
Study of a Venetian ‘Rascona’ Cargo Boat; the Basilica and Campanile of San Marco (St Mark’s), Venice, from the Porta della Carta of the Palazzo Ducale (Doge’s Palace) 1833
D31931
Turner Bequest CCCXIV 2a
Pencil on white laid paper, 109 x 203 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The page was used horizontally on two separate occasions. The main subject has been identified by Ian Warrell as a local Venetian rascona cargo boat, characterised by its twin masts, flat bottom and shallow draught, and an extendable cloth canopy.1
As well as numerous waterfront scenes which naturally feature the perennial gondolas and more or less prominent shipping (see in particular folios 7 verso, 12 recto, 13 recto, 50 verso and 96 recto; D31940, D31948, D31950, D32024, D32107), there are a few pages in this sketchbook comprising or including studies of local vessels in isolation; see also folios 6 recto, 10 recto, 13 verso, 14 recto, 20 recto, 26 verso–27 recto, 49 verso, 56 recto, 73 verso and 100 recto (D31938, D31944, D31951–D31952, D31964, D31977–D31978, D32022, D32035, D32064, D32115).2 Among finished works, two feature local craft particularly prominently: The Sun of Venice: Bragozzi Moored off the Riva degli Schiavoni, a watercolour associated with the 1840 tour (National Gallery of Scotland):3 and, most famously, the oil painting The Sun of Venice going to Sea, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1843 (Tate N00535).4
At the gutter are fainter architectural forms continued upwards from the full-page drawing on folio 3 recto opposite (D31932), with elements of the north-west corner of the Palazzo Ducale (Doge’s Palace), the campanile of San Marco (St Mark’s) and the south-west corner of the basilica, seen to the west from the palace’s Porta della Carta entrance; see under D31932 for detailed discussion. For this sketchbook’s somewhat convoluted general sequence, see its Introduction.

Matthew Imms
May 2019

1
Draft notes of 2010–11, Tate cataloguing files.
2
Some as noted in Ian Warrell, Through Switzerland with Turner: Ruskin’s First Selection from the Turner Bequest, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1995, p.98 under no.54.
3
Andrew Wilton, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work, Fribourg 1979, p.465 no.1374, pl.233; this sketchbook in general is mentioned in relation to the watercolour in Keith Andrews, The Vaughan Bequest of Turner Watercolours, Edinburgh 1980, p.34, Lindsay Stainton, Turner’s Venice, London 1985, p.67 under no.95, and Mungo Campbell, A Complete Catalogue of Works by Turner in the National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh 1993, p.82 under no.31.
4
Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll, The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner, revised ed., New Haven and London 1984, pp.250–2 no.402, pl.408 (colour).

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Study of a Venetian ‘Rascona’ Cargo Boat; the Basilica and Campanile of San Marco (St Mark’s), Venice, from the Porta della Carta of the Palazzo Ducale (Doge’s Palace) 1833 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, May 2019, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, March 2023, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-study-of-a-venetian-rascona-cargo-boat-the-basilica-and-r1203610, accessed 01 June 2024.