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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1830-35 Annual tourist > Southern Germany, Austria and Venice ... > Venice up to Trento Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner ?Treviso: A Street or Canal Scene with Buttressed Buildings; the Cathedral 1833

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘?Treviso: A Street or Canal Scene with Buttressed Buildings; the Cathedral’ 1833
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 4 Recto:
?Treviso: A Street or Canal Scene with Buttressed Buildings; the Cathedral 1833
D31603
Turner Bequest CCCXII 4
Pencil on white laid paper, 109 x 203 mm
Inscribed by C.F. Bell in black ink ‘4’ bottom left, descending vertically
Stamped in black ‘CCCXII – 4’ bottom left, descending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
With the page turned horizontally, there are two slightly overlapping and likely related subjects here. On the left is a view between buildings with the buttressed arcade elements, like oversized machicolations, characteristic of some along Treviso’s system of narrow canals, although the precise setting is unconfirmed.
Apparently drawn over faint indications of buildings extending from the foreground of the left-hand view, the main subject to the right seems to be Treviso Cathedral, with the dome over its crossing above the distinctive lantern admitting light through the pitched tiled roof of the nave towards its west front. Turner did not linger long over this slight study, as the fundamentally Romanesque building, already redeveloped during the Renaissance, was perhaps in some disarray in the course of its latest transformation (completed in 1836), including the addition of a full-height Neo-Classical portico.1
These suggestions are prompted by the proximity of three confirmed Treviso views on the verso (D31604), under which the city’s place on Turner’s route is briefly discussed.

Matthew Imms
May 2019

1
See discussion and historical images at ‘The Duomo (Cathedral) in Treviso, Piazza Duomo’, Trevisoinfo.com, accessed 21 March 2019, https://www.trevisoinfo.com/duomo.htm.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘?Treviso: A Street or Canal Scene with Buttressed Buildings; the Cathedral 1833 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, May 2019, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, March 2023, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-treviso-a-street-or-canal-scene-with-buttressed-buildings-r1203801, accessed 05 July 2024.