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

Although its core subject has long been recognised, this sunlit view of the church of San Stefano is a far from straightforward representation, supposedly looking north-north-east along the Rio del Santissimo to the apsidal east end of the large church, under which the canal passes via a tunnel. The prospect is extremely restricted in reality, down a narrow, canyon-like space between rather nondescript canalfront buildings.

Turner made a quick pencil sketch of the scene in the 1840 Rotterdam to Venice sketchbook (Tate D32441; Turner Bequest CCCXX 91) during an excursion through the back alleys within the south-western loop of the Grand Canal; in the 1970s the connection was established by Andrew Wilton, who inferred that the present study and others of Venice on grey paper must derive from the 1840 visit rather that the 1833 tour, as sometimes thought,1 the sketchbook’s date having long been established.2 See this tour’s Introduction for an overview of the dating of the many separate sheets now associated with it.

The artist made few drawings of such relatively out-of-the-way Venetian subjects,3 but the Rotterdam to Venice sketch is one evidently became the germ of an idea, its alignments suggesting his viewpoint as likely the Ponte San Maurizio linking the narrow Calle del Piovan with the Calle dello Spezier to its west, rather than a boat on the narrow canal itself. The upright pencil sketch focuses on the church, with the roofline of the apse curving down to the right and only a sliver of the segmental tiled roof visible from below, flanked by loose hints of chimneys, windows and an archway. The bridge itself (the only one between the church and the Grand Canal, behind the viewpoint) appears to be represented, but so summarily that it may be no more than a diagrammatic reminder to Turner of where he stood, reinforced by his written note: ‘Ponte Maurizio’.

In mentioning the link to the present work, Lindsay Stainton observed that its ‘degree of elaboration tends to suggest that this sheet was not drawn on the spot, but executed from memory’.4 Indeed, the whole subject has been opened out, with afternoon sunlight illuminating a spacious setting centred on the bridge near the foreground, with striped awnings and strokes of bright blue and ochre suggesting people towards the bottom left and right; the right-hand side in particular has been expanded to suggest a broad quay or the entrance to a piazza, perhaps as an evocation of the capacious Campo Santo Stefano, only a steps away along the Calle dello Spezier. Meanwhile, the diagonal form at the bottom left might hint at another bridge in the immediate foreground, as an imaginary viewpoint for this semi-imaginary scene.

The church is shows almost in elevation, as though from a greater distance than Turner had experienced, with its roof pitched more steeply than in reality; oddly, a spurious campanile or integral tower has been introduced to the left.5 The actual campanile is more impressive, with an octagonal lantern topping its belfry, and stands a short distance away to the east-south-east, out of sight to the right here. It is shown soaring in the distance of another rare pencil study along a side canal, in the contemporary Venice and Botzen sketchbook (Tate D31826; Turner Bequest CCCXIII 18a), and as one three in a colour study made from Turner’s elevated Hotel Europa room on this visit (Tate D32140; Turner Bequest CCCXVI 3). If he came no nearer to the church on the ground than this bridge, he may have been confused as to the tower’s true position.

Without further elaboration, in 1881 John Ruskin categorised this work among twenty-five Turner Bequest subjects ‘chiefly in Venice. Late time, extravagant, and showing some of the painter’s worst and final faults; but also, some of his peculiar gifts in a supreme degree.’6

Compare the handling and sunlit effect (catching the side of a similar bridge in the same way) in the contemporary grey paper colour study of the Palazzo Grimani from the Rio San Luca off the Grand Canal (Tate D32215; Turner Bequest CCCXVII 30), another subject expanded and considerably developed from its constricted situation in reality.

Technical notes:

In 1925 Finberg annotated his 1909 Inventory entry (‘Church of San Stefano’): ‘? Black marks in sky. Mildew or body colour tarnished?’.1 Such marks are not now evident, and would presumably have been remedied while the sheet was in the care of the British Museum along with the rest of the Turner Bequest in the wake of the 1928 Tate Gallery flood, before the first of its various modern exhibitions in 1966.

This is one of numerous 1840 Venice works Ian Warrell has noted as being on ‘Bally, Ellen and Steart grey paper’ which Turner had also used on his Continental tour of 1833, including Venice, and therefore ‘the dating of some of these sheets in uncertain’ (see in particular Tate D32205–D32210; Turner Bequest CCCXVII 20–25); the following ‘seem to arise from the later visit’:2 Tate D32180–D32181, D32183–D32184, D32200–D32201, D32203–D32204, D32212, D32215, D32217 (Turner Bequest CCCXVII 1, 2, 4, 5, 15, 16, 18, 19, 27–30, 32); see also Venice: San Giorgio Maggiore and the Zitelle from the Giudecca (currently untraced)3 and The Doge’s Palace from the Bacino (private collection),4 and two further ‘half-size sheets’:5 Tate D33883 (Turner Bequest CCCXLI 183), and Shipping with Buildings, ?Venice (Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge).6

Verso:

Blank; inscribed by ?Turner in ink ‘7’ top right, descending vertically; inscribed in pencil ‘33’ right of centre; stamped in black with Turner Bequest monogram over ‘CCCXVII – 32’ towards bottom left; inscribed in pencil ‘CCCXVII.32’ bottom centre. If the ink numeral is in Turner’s hand, it may relate to his now incomplete and obscure sequence on the backs of contemporary Venice studies on brown or brownish-grey papers, although the same number appears on the back of Tate D32220 (Turner Bequest CCCXVIII 1).