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

Finberg later annotated his 1909 Inventory entry (‘The Riva degli Schiavone’): ‘Doge’s Palace & Campanile from nr. Public Gardens. – no scaffolding on Camp^e’.1 The Turner scholar C.F. Bell marked another copy: ‘from near S. Biagio’.2 He also noted in a copy of Finberg’s 1930 book In Venice with Turner: ‘from San Biagio’.3 The page’s title was amended by Ian Warrell to ‘Distant View of the Doge’s Palace and the Campanile of San Marco from the Eastern End of the Riva degli Schiavoni’ in 2003, in connection with his concurrent Turner and Venice exhibition at Tate Britain.4 The drawing was made with the page turned horizontally.

The bridge in the foreground appears to be the Ponte della Veneta Marina, connecting the Riva San Biagio with what is now the Riva dei Sette Martiri in the right foreground; this is consistent with the alignment of St Mark’s campanile above the south-eastern corner of the Palazzo Ducale, with the domes of the basilica beyond the Riva degli Schiavoni to their right. The waterfront is somewhat compressed, with the squat campanile of San Zaccaria and the unfinished classical façade of the Pietà church being the only clearly articulated features. Hardy George noted this as one of ‘a number of sketches showing the Campanile without scaffolding’,5 an important point in dating this sketchbook to 1833 rather than 1840, when platforms were in place around the spire; see the book’s Introduction, where George’s general overview of this sketchbook’s sequence6 is also noted.

The present sketch perhaps marks the beginning of a single waterborne excursion (up to folio 24 recto; D31945–D31972) out towards the Giardini Pubblici at the eastern end of Venice and then westwards across the Lagoon along the southern shores of the islands of San Giorgio Maggiore and the Giudecca, before turning back for the Bacino at the heart of the city along the Canale della Giudecca. Folios 11 recto and verso (D31946–D31947) extend the view to the left, west and south over the Canale di San Marco; the latter drawing also includes a detail of buildings apparently extending to the right of the present view.

The artist returned to make a rapid single drawing of the whole scene in the 1840 Venice and Botzen sketchbook (Tate D31809; Turner Bequest CCCXIII 10; compare also two watercolours of that year (Tate D32159 and D32167; Turner Bequest CCCXVI 22, 30). D31835 (CCCXIII 23) in the Venice and Botzen book also shows the bridge and adjacent buildings.