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

The Turner scholar C.F. Bell annotated Finberg’s 1909 Inventory entry (‘Shipping, with buildings’): ‘on the Giudecca?’1 The drawing was made with the page turned horizontally; from the context of adjacent sketches, the subject is instead likely along the Canale di San Marco waterfront east of the Riva degli Schiavoni, though the swiftness of the sketch makes the identification of the bridge and the small domed tower to its left uncertain. Ian Warrell has compared it to Dionisio Moretti’s engraving including the Ponte della Veneta Marina (see folios 10 verso and 11 verso; D31945, D31947) in Antonio Quadri’s 1828 survey of Il Canal Grande di Venezia (plate 42), and identified the sailing boat as a two-masted bragozzo.2 For other studies in this sketchbook showing local shipping in isolation or particularly prominently in topographical views of the city, see under folio 2 verso (D31931).

The present sketch falls within what was perhaps a single waterborne excursion (folios 10 verso–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. For this sketchbook’s general sequence, including Hardy George’s broad overview,3 see its Introduction.