Joseph Mallord William Turner The Basilica of San Marco (St Mark's), Venice, with the Piazzetta Beyond and the Campanile and Biblioteca Marciana (Libreria Sansoviniana) Opposite 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 42 Verso:
The Basilica of San Marco (St Mark’s), Venice, with the Piazzetta Beyond and the Campanile and Biblioteca Marciana (Libreria Sansoviniana) Opposite 1819
D14394
Turner Bequest CLXXV 42a
Turner Bequest CLXXV 42a
Pencil on white wove paper, 112 x 185 mm
Partial watermark ‘Al | 18’
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘24 arches | F Ionic [...] fluted | [?for ...]’ and ‘Doric’ below left of centre, and ‘[?24]’ below right of centre, on façades
Partial watermark ‘Al | 18’
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘24 arches | F Ionic [...] fluted | [?for ...]’ and ‘Doric’ below left of centre, and ‘[?24]’ below right of centre, on façades
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Exhibition history
1988
Turner & Architecture, Tate Gallery, London, March–July 1988 (58, as ‘Venice: The Piazzetta’).
References
1909
A.J. Finberg, A Complete Inventory of the Drawings of the Turner Bequest, London 1909, vol.I, p.513, CLXXV 42a, as ‘The Piazzetta, looking towards the Lagune, with the Campanile and Library on the right, and the Ducal Palace on the left’.
1930
A.J. Finberg, In Venice with Turner, London 1930, p.163, as ‘The Loggetta and Old Library, with part of the New Procuratie, from the Piazzetta dei Leoni’.
1988
Ian Warrell and Diane Perkins, Turner & Architecture, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1988, p.22 no.58, as ‘Venice: The Piazzetta’.
The drawing is inverted relative to the sketchbook’s foliation. The Turner scholar C.F. Bell annotated Finberg’s detailed 1909 Inventory entry (‘The Piazzetta, looking towards the Lagune, with the Campanile and Library on the right, and the Ducal Palace on the left’), rightly crossing out the mention of the Palazzo Ducale (Doge’s Palace) palace and adding: ‘L and C[...] Piazza in perspective’.1
The viewpoint is near the north-west corner of the Basilica of San Marco, at the north-eastern end of the Piazza San Marco (St Mark’s Square), its clustered marble columns (continued a little way onto folio 43 recto opposite; D14395) in steep recession at the left framing the prospect south-south-east down the Piazzetta to the Molo fronting the Bacino. On the diagonal to the south-west on the right are the campanile and its loggetta, with the Biblioteca Marciana (Libreria Sansoviniana) to their left, the regular façade of the Procuratie Nuove to their right, and figures around market stalls with awnings in the square. Ian Warrell and Diane Perkins have noted that, as is often the case, Turner ‘avoided sketching repetitious architectural features by writing “24” on the arches of the Library and drawing only a few of them carefully’.2
There is a similar view from nearer to the campanile, showing more of the basilica, on folio 41 verso (D14392). As Warrell and Perkins observe, such a subject ‘would have been popular with tourists then, as it is today’.3 For other drawings made in the vicinity and an overview of Turner’s coverage of Venice, see the sketchbook’s Introduction.
Matthew Imms
March 2017
How to cite
Matthew Imms, ‘The Basilica of San Marco (St Mark’s), Venice, with the Piazzetta Beyond and the Campanile and Biblioteca Marciana (Libreria Sansoviniana) Opposite 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