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 Entrance to the Grand Canal, Venice, with the Dogana, Santa Maria della Salute, and the Campanile of San Marco (St Mark's), from the Bacino 1840

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Entrance to the Grand Canal, Venice, with the Dogana, Santa Maria della Salute, and the Campanile of San Marco (St Mark's), from the Bacino’ 1840
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 7 Recto:
The Entrance to the Grand Canal, Venice, with the Dogana, Santa Maria della Salute, and the Campanile of San Marco (St Mark’s), from the Bacino 1840
D31803
Turner Bequest CCCXIII 7
Pencil on cream wove paper, 123 x 173 mm
Partial watermark ‘J. Wh’
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘7’ top right, ascending vertically
Stamped in black ‘CCCXIII – 7’ top right, ascending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Finberg later annotated his 1909 Inventory entry (‘Canal of St. Mark’s’): ‘Entrance Gd. Canal’.1 The Turner scholar C.F. Bell marked another copy: ‘Campanile with scaffolding’.2 This simplified and rather laterally compressed view, drawn with the page turned horizontally, shows the Dogana to the west on the left, with the domes of Santa Maria della Salute beyond on the south side of the entrance to the Grand Canal. Outlined on the right is a rough indication of buildings along the Molo waterfront with the campanile of San Marco (St Mark’) above; the schematic banding around its spire indicates the scaffolding noted by Bell, a key feature in the dating of 1840 views (see the Introduction to the tour).
The viewpoint appears to be the Bacino somewhere midway between the Palazzo Ducale (Doge’s Palace) and the Isola di San Giorgio Maggiore to its south. Compare the more detailed views on the verso (D31804).

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
Undated MS note by Bell (died 1966) in copy of Finberg 1909, Prints and Drawings Room, Tate Britain, II, p.1009.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘The Entrance to the Grand Canal, Venice, with the Dogana, Santa Maria della Salute, and the Campanile of San Marco (St Mark’s), from the Bacino 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-entrance-to-the-grand-canal-venice-with-the-dogana-santa-r1196697, accessed 21 November 2024.