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

In this schematic view the Dogana glows pale in the twilight to the left of Santa Maria della Salute’s domes. The viewpoint is the Bacino off the Palazzo Ducale (Doge’s Palace), looking west to the palaces along the north side of the entrance to the Grand Canal, the only specific landmark towards the right being the silhouetted campanile of San Moisè.

Similarly generalised, atmospheric evening effects are seen in technically related nearby views (Tate D32150–D32151; Turner Bequest CCCXVI 13, 14), and on pages in the contemporary Grand Canal and Giudecca sketchbook (Tate D32130, D32133; Turner Bequest CCCXV 14, 17).1 Andrew Wilton has characterised such studies as ‘rich in colour but extremely economical of means, evoking the wide level waters of the Bacino di San Marco with a minimum of touches.’2 Ian Warrell has characterised D32150–D32152: ‘As a linked sequence, they deftly recreate the graduated nuances of the failing light, using the landmarks nearest the Bacino to chart the onset of twilight, passing from a washed-out pink to a sombre lilac and finally becoming a more solid blue.’3

The present sheet was chosen by the critic, artist and great advocate of Turner, John Ruskin, among long-term loans from the Bequest to Oxford University from 1878 onwards; Warrell has observed: ‘It is perhaps surprising that one of these remarkably slight studies was selected ... at exactly the same time as he was facing prosecution for castigating Whistler’s Nocturnes [see for instance Tate N01959, N03419–N03420, T01571], though he was not so much interested in the image itself as in the fact that it revealed how Turner would make good use of accidents in his materials, such as the fold at the lower-right corner of the page.’4 See the technical notes for further discussion.

Technical notes:

The right-hand edge is slightly irregular, and partly folded over across the main body of the sheet towards the bottom right. It was evidently in that state when Turner used it, as the washes continue over this brief overlap. This unusual circumstance is not obtrusive and was evidently of no consequence to the artist as he worked, but it occasioned one of the thankfully rare direct annotations of a Turner Bequest drawing by John Ruskin, who first examined and sorted the works in detail and was himself a practised watercolourist: ‘Preserve this drawing exactly as it is, as evidence of the way he worked, the turned edge of paper painted upon’. Compare Ruskin’s annotations ‘map of cow – curious’ (Tate D06174; Turner Bequest XCVII 89) or ‘Tail & head of Fish, cut off | to get centre into sliding | frames. JR. 1862’ (Tate D25520; Turner Bequest CCLXIII a 5).

Finberg had distinguished Tate D32148–D32152 (Turner Bequest CCCXVII 11–15), all 1840 Venetian subjects, as being on ‘slightly yellowish coarse paper’.1 While technical examination has since shown that the first two are on a different buff paper, the present work is one of four contemporary sheets noted by Ian Warrell as ‘Pale grey-white wove [paper], watermarked: “C S”, followed by laurel leaves, and mould numbers’,2 namely Tate D32150–D32153 (Turner Bequest CCCXVI 13–16). He characterised it as an ‘Italian paper, probably made in the Brescia region’.3

Verso:

Blank; inscribed in blue pencil ‘72’ towards bottom left, ascending vertically; stamped in black ‘CCCXVI – 15’ over Turner Bequest monogram below centre; inscribed in pencil ‘D32152’ towards bottom right.