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

The Turner scholar C.F. Bell annotated Finberg’s vague 1909 Inventory entry (‘View of city: evening’): ‘Venice from the roof of the Europa’.1 Finberg did not recognise the subject in time for his detailed 1930 book on Turner’s Venice work,2 although the identification was confirmed when the work was exhibited in 1935.3

The view ranges north-eastwards over the rooftops to the campanile of San Marco (St Mark’s) on the left, with the pinkish Piazzetta façade of the Palazzo Ducale below, along the Molo and Riva degli Schiavoni waterfront, and out across the Bacino, south-eastwards to the campanile and dome of San Giorgio Maggiore. The vista is similar to that shown in a sunlit contemporary colour study (Tate D32179; Turner Bequest CCCXVI 42) , with detailed pencil work which the present variant entirely lacks, and a more spontaneous view of a dramatic sunrise (D35949; CCCLXIV 106).

As Bell noted, the viewpoint was the Hotel Europa (the Palazzo Giustinian), where Turner was staying; see the Introduction to this subsection. His room was apparently high up at the north-eastern corner, and the campanile is seen through a window in Tate D32219 (Turner Bequest CCCXVII 34). Compare also the various day and night effects in D32142, D32173, D32224, D32229 and D32254 in the present grouping (Turner Bequest CCCXVI 5, 36, CCCXVIII 5, 10, CCCXIX 6).4 Ian Warrell has observed that the diagonal shadows here suggest ‘the end of the afternoon’.5

Technical notes:

The work is executed entirely in watercolour, ranging from architectural details carefully outlined with the point of the brush, broader, controlled washes to create shadowy spaces filled with reflected light, and clouds evoked through a combination of dry, hatched strokes over the horizon and much more fluid areas towards the top right. As D. Kighley Baxandall remarked: ‘years of acute study of cloud-phenomena lie behind the sky’.1

This is one of seven 1840 Venice works Ian Warrell has noted as on ‘sheets of white paper probably made [under the name] Charles Ansell.2 These measure approximately 19.8 x 28.4 cm (indicating that they were folded and torn into eight pieces from an imperial sheet)’:3 Tate D32140, D32165, D32179, D35882, D35949, D36192 (Turner Bequest CCCXVI 3, 28, 42, CCCLXIV 43, 106, 334); see also San Giorgio Maggiore from the Hotel Europa, at the Entrance to the Grand Canal (Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester).4 Warrell has noted that an ‘eighth sheet’, Tate D32166 (Turner Bequest CCCXVI 29), ‘seems to relate to this group, both technically and in terms of its size, but this has been identified by [paper conservator] Peter Bower as paper produced by Bally, Ellen and Steart’.5

Verso:

Blank; inscribed in pencil ‘68’ above centre; stamped in black with Turner Bequest monogram over ‘CCCLXIV – 43’ and inscribed in pencil ‘D35882’ bottom left.