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

Finberg later annotated his 1909 Inventory entry (‘The Ducal Palace from the Riva degli Schiavone’): ‘do. [i.e. ditto: Dogana & Salute] from beyond do. [Ponte Paglia] – Bridge in foreg^d’.1 The page’s title was amended by Ian Warrell to ‘The Doge’s Palace from the Riva degli Schiavoni beside the New Prisons’ in 2003, in connection with his concurrent Turner and Venice exhibition at Tate Britain.2 The drawing was made with the page turned horizontally.

The view is westwards along the Molo quay from the start of the Riva degli Schiavoni, with the New Prisons in the right foreground, looking across the mouth of the Rio del Palazzo and the Ponte della Paglia. Beyond, the south-east corner of the Palazzo Ducale (Doge’s Palace) is seen at a steep angle, with the columns at the entrance to the Piazzetta to the left of centre, and the spire of the campanile of San Marco (St Mark’s) soaring above. In the distance towards the left, across the Bacino at the mouth of the Grand Canal, are the porch of the Dogana and the domes of Santa Maria della Salute; the prospect is somewhat laterally compressed, and Turner adjusted the proportions as he drew, with a larger initial representation of the Salute’s main dome, to the left of the masts, being superseded by a more compact rendering towards the left-hand edge to give a greater sense of recession.

The elements from the far end of the palace onwards are shown in crisper detail in the similar view on folio 6 recto (D31938), apparently drawn from the near end of the Molo. The subject was a familiar one; see for example Tate D14414 (Turner Bequest CLXXV 52a) in the 1819 Milan to Venice sketchbook. Compare also Richard Parkes Bonington’s oil painting Venice: Ducal Palace with a Religious Procession, exhibited in 1828 (Tate N05789). Likely fortuitously, it shows virtually the same prospect, albeit without the spire showing above the palace’s roofline; to see it rising so far, Turner would have had to stand well back, in front of the Hotel Danieli (Palazzo Dandolo).

For this sketchbook’s general sequence, including Hardy George’s broad overview,3 see its Introduction.