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

The view is west-north-west along the Canale della Giudecca from between the Redentore and Zitelle churches (the latter being some way behind the viewer), off the Fondamenta della Croce. The Redentore is the most prominent building, seen to the south-west on the left beyond the bridge over the Rio della Croce, while the dome of the Gesuati is the most distinctive feature in the distance on the opposite side. The viewpoint, south of Santa Maria della Salute, is much the same as for two contemporary watercolour views to the north, ranging from the Salute to San Giorgio Maggiore, also included in this subsection (Tate D32139, D32145; Turner Bequest CCCXVI 2, 8).

Finberg later annotated his 1909 Inventory entry (‘The Giudecca, with the “Redentore” and “S. Domenico.”’): ‘looking twds Fusina, raised bridge near Redentore. The ch. opposite the Redentore (on the Zattere) is probably the Gesuati (S. Maria del Rosario) – it was built by the Dominicans who succeeded the Gesuati after 1688’.1 The Turner scholar C.F. Bell concurred, crossing out ‘S. Domenico’ in his copy and noting: ‘actually the Gesuati’.2 Lindsay Stainton later read Turner’s inscriptions, which ‘give the drawing the character of a page from one of the sketchbooks’, as ‘Redentore Ruintore [?] Capella S. Domenico’, inferring that the latter part ‘must be a reference’ to the Gesuati (under which it appears), as ‘the order of the Poveri Gesuati merged with the Dominicans in 1668.’3

Cecilia Powell has commented: ‘the third word ... seems clearly, I think, to be Capuchin rather than Capella: Turner was noting the fact that the [Capuchin] Franciscans [of the Redentore] and the Dominicans looked across the Giudecca canal at each others’ churches!’4 Turner’s second word, looking like ‘Ruintore’, remains elusive, although it may simply have been a garbled first attempt at ‘Redentore’, as written above it.

Technical notes:

This is one of numerous 1840 Venice works Ian Warrell has noted as on sheets of ‘white paper produced [under the name] Charles Ansell,1 each measuring around 24 x 30 cm, several watermarked with the date “1828”’:2 Tate D32138–D32139, D32141–D32143, D32145–D32147, D32154–D32163, D32167–D32168, D32170–D32177, D35980, D36190 (Turner Bequest CCCXVI 1, 2, 4–6, 8–10, 17–26, 30, 31, 33–40, CCCLXIV 137, 332). Warrell has also observed that The Doge’s Palace and Piazzetta, Venice (National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin)3 and Venice: The New Moon (currently untraced)4 ‘may belong to this group’.5

Verso:

Blank; inscribed in pencil ‘30’ towards top right; stamped in black ‘CCCXVI – 9’ over Turner Bequest monogram below centre; inscribed in pencil ‘D32146’ bottom right.