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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1830-35 Annual tourist > Southern Germany, Austria and Venice ... > Venice Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner The Grand Canal near the Rialto, Venice, from the Palazzo Bernardo a San Polo, with the Palazzo Grimani and the Campanile of San Bartolomeo 1833

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Grand Canal near the Rialto, Venice, from the Palazzo Bernardo a San Polo, with the Palazzo Grimani and the Campanile of San Bartolomeo’ 1833
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 85 Recto:
The Grand Canal near the Rialto, Venice, from the Palazzo Bernardo a San Polo, with the Palazzo Grimani and the Campanile of San Bartolomeo 1833
D32086
Turner Bequest CCCXIV 85
Pencil on white laid paper, 109 x 203 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘yell’ bottom centre
Inscribed by C.F. Bell in black ink ‘85’ top right, ascending vertically
Stamped in black ‘CCCXIV – 85’ top right, ascending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The drawing was made with the page turned horizontally. Finberg’s entry for the page, suggesting the Grand Canal as the setting,1 was oddly hesitant given that several distinctive buildings are shown, but the subject has been confirmed by Ian Warrell2 as a view east-north-east towards the Rialto, with the twin obelisk finials of the Palazzo Papadopoli in the middle distance on the left and the large, heavily articulated Palazzo Grimani on right, framing the campanile of San Bartolomeo in the distance, deceptively aligned with the dome of Santi Giovanni e Paolo, about twice as far off.
The loosely rendered Gothic façade seen obliquely in the left foreground is the Palazzo Bernardo a San Polo’s. From this viewpoint, near the north side of the canal, the Rialto Bridge is just out of sight level with San Bartolomeo, obscured by the buildings beyond the Papadopoli; folio 84 recto (D32084), from further forward, does bring it into view. There are various studies from along this reach; compare for example the detailed pencil drawing in the 1819 Milan to Venice sketchbook (Tate D14455–D14456; Turner Bequest CLXXV 73, 74).
Folio 84 verso opposite (D32085) is a prospect westward from a similar viewpoint, albeit from nearer to the south side. See under folio 74 verso (D32066), for the long series of Grand Canal views in this part of the sketchbook; for its somewhat convoluted general sequence, including Hardy George’s broad overview,3 see the Introduction.

Matthew Imms
May 2019

1
See Finberg 1909, II, p.1015.
2
Draft notes of 2010–11, Tate cataloguing files.
3
See George 1984, pp.13–15.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘The Grand Canal near the Rialto, Venice, from the Palazzo Bernardo a San Polo, with the Palazzo Grimani and the Campanile of San Bartolomeo 1833 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, May 2019, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, March 2023, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-the-grand-canal-near-the-rialto-venice-from-the-palazzo-r1203763, accessed 27 April 2025.