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 > Route to Rome Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Copies of Paintings by Veronese in the Sala del Collegio of the Palazzo Ducale, Venice 1819

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Copies of Paintings by Veronese in the Sala del Collegio of the Palazzo Ducale, Venice’ 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 29 Recto:
Copies of Paintings by Veronese in the Sala del Collegio of the Palazzo Ducale, Venice 1819
D13913
Turner Bequest CLXXI 29
Pencil on white wove paper, 88 x 114 mm
Inscribed by the artist in pencil ‘
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘29’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CLXXI 29’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
One of Turner’s key objectives during his 1819 tour of Italy, was to reacquaint himself with the work of the sixteenth-century Venetian school, whose work he had first seen in Paris in 1802. During his stay in Venice he therefore filled a number of pages of the Route to Rome sketchbook with drawings and notes on pictures found in various locations around the city. Ian Warrell has identified the sketches on this page as copies of paintings by Veronese (1528–88) in the Sala del Collegio (Council Chamber) of the Palazzo Ducale (Doge’s Palace). The subjects are, from top left to bottom right, as follows:
a.
The subject of the details in the top left-hand corner is currently unidentified. The study is inscribed ‘Yel’, ‘GB’ and ‘L’.
b.
The four figures across the top right-hand side of the page represent female allegorical figures from the ceiling. The details of the sketches have become confused by pencil off-set from the opposite sheet but identifiable details include the form of an eagle (Moderation), second from the right, and another figure annotated ‘Y[ellow]’ third from the right. This suggests that the sketches record the four corner panels.
c.
Second row, left-hand side is a copy of Sebastiano Venier giving thanks to the Redeemer after the Battle of Lepanto, 1581–2. This painting is situated on the end wall above the dais of the throne. Turner has annotated the sketch with colour notes ‘B’, ‘W’, ‘Q Yell’ and ‘Yell’.
d.
Second row, right-hand side is a copy of Mars and Venus, 1575–8, from the ceiling, which includes the campanile of San Marco in the background.
As Warrell notes, sketching in many Italian palaces and galleries was strictly restricted and Turner’s on-the-spot records would therefore have been made surreptitiously.1 Further studies relating to the Palazzo Ducale can be found on folios 27 verso (D13910).

Nicola Moorby
March 2010

1
Ian Warrell, David Laven, Jan Morris and others, Turner and Venice, exhibition catalogue, Tate Britain, London 2003, p.119.

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘Copies of Paintings by Veronese in the Sala del Collegio of the Palazzo Ducale, Venice 1819 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, March 2010, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2012, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-copies-of-paintings-by-veronese-in-the-sala-del-collegio-of-r1138731, accessed 15 January 2025.