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 and Botzen Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner The Basilica of San Marco (St Mark's), Venice, from the Top of the Scala dei Giganti (Giants' Staircase) in the Courtyard of the Palazzo Ducale (Doge's Palace), with the Statues of Mars and Neptune 1840

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Basilica of San Marco (St Mark's), Venice, from the Top of the Scala dei Giganti (Giants' Staircase) in the Courtyard of the Palazzo Ducale (Doge's Palace), with the Statues of Mars and Neptune’ 1840
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 2 Verso:
The Basilica of San Marco (St Mark’s), Venice, from the Top of the Scala dei Giganti (Giants’ Staircase) in the Courtyard of the Palazzo Ducale (Doge’s Palace), with the Statues of Mars and Neptune 1840
D31794
Turner Bequest CCCXIII 2a
Pencil on cream wove paper, 123 x 173 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘...’ centre left
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Finberg later annotated his tentative 1909 Inventory entry (‘St. Marks from the library (?)’): ‘Giants Stairway’ and ‘Staircase of Doges Palace’.1 With the page turned horizontally, the subject is indeed the Scala dei Giganti, at the north end of the courtyard of the Palazzo Ducale (Doge’s Palace). From beside the top of the stairs, with the nude stone statues of Neptune (on the left) and Mars (in a plumed helmet), the view is north-west to the south-east corner of the Basilica of San Marco (St Mark’s). Beyond Neptune is the monumental Arco Foscari entrance to the Porta della Carta arcade, flanked by bronze statues, their positions loosely indicated by calligraphic marks. Andrew Wilton has used this page as an example of the ‘forceful freedom of the sketches in this book’.2
There are related views on folios 17 verso–18 recto and 20 recto (D31824–D31825, D31829). See also the contemporary Rotterdam to Venice sketchbook (Tate D32438; Turner Bequest CCCXX 89a), and Tate D32009 (Turner Bequest CCCXIV 43) in the 1833 Venice book. The staircase is also seen through the Porta della Carta in two 1840 watercolours (Tate D32181, D32247; Turner Bequest CCCXVII 2, CCCXVIII 28).3

Matthew Imms
September 2018

1
Undated MS note by Finberg (died 1939) in interleaved copy of Finberg 1909, Prints and Drawings Room, Tate Britain, II, opposite p.1009.
2
Wilton 1974, p.155.
3
See Warrell 2003, pp.123, 263 note 9.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘The Basilica of San Marco (St Mark’s), Venice, from the Top of the Scala dei Giganti (Giants’ Staircase) in the Courtyard of the Palazzo Ducale (Doge’s Palace), with the Statues of Mars and Neptune 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-basilica-of-san-marco-st-marks-venice-from-the-top-of-r1196688, accessed 17 July 2024.