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We look across a glittering waterway lined with long, low boats and sailboats at an ivory-white church in the distance to our right in this horizontal landscape painting. The horizon line comes about a third of the way up the composition, and wispy white clouds sweep across the brilliant azure-blue sky above. A row of buildings comes into view lining the canal to our right, with a terracotta-orange building followed by a cream-white building beyond, both angled toward the church. The church has a high dome rising over the temple-like front, which has columns supporting a triangular pediment. A tall bell tower rises to the left of the church. The low boats, gondolas, to our left are packed with people while a few gondolas floating in the center of the canal appear occupied only by their gondoliers who stand holding their poles. Painted in tones of ivory and peach, the sails of boats behind the gondolas to our left billow in the breeze while the sails of vessels docked to our right are furled. The structures, boats, and people cast shimmering reflections on the gently rippling surface of the water in the canal. Rows of boats and buildings lining the canal extend into the deep, hazy distance to our left.

Joseph Mallord William Turner

Venice: The Dogana and San Giorgio Maggiore, 1834

West Building, Main Floor — Gallery 57

Medium

oil on canvas

Dimensions

overall: 91.5 × 122 cm (36 × 48 1/16 in.)

framed: 126.37 × 156.21 × 15.88 cm (49 3/4 × 61 1/2 × 6 1/4 in.)

Credit Line

Widener Collection

Accession Number

1942.9.85

Artists / Makers

Joseph Mallord William Turner (artist) British, 1775 - 1851

Image Use

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Provenance

Painted for Henry McConnel [1801-1871], The Polygon, Ardwick, Manchester; sold 1849 to John Naylor, Leighton Hall, Liverpool;[1] passed to his wife; purchased 1910 through (Dyer and Sons) by (Thos. Agnew & Sons, Ltd., London); re-entered April 1910 in Agnew's stock in joint ownership with (Arthur J. Sulley & Co., London); purchased 13 June 1910 from (Arthur J. Sulley & Co., London) by Peter A.B. Widener, Elkins Park, Pennsylvania; inheritance from estate of Peter A.B. Widener by gift through power of appointment of Joseph E. Widener, Elkins Park.

[1] McConnel, acclaimed as "the pioneer of art collecting in Lancashire," subsequently commissioned a contrasting companion picture of an industrial scene at a seaport in the north of England (NGA 1942.9.86, Keelmen Heaving in Coals by Moonlight). In 1861 he tried, unsuccessfully, to buy back from John Naylor one or other of these canvasses, which he had sold to him in 1849. McConnel to John Naylor, 28 May 1861 (quoted in Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll, The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner, 2 vols., rev. ed., New Haven: 1984: I:205).

Associated Names

Agnew & Sons, Ltd., Thomas
Dyer and Sons
McConnel, Henry
Naylor, John
Naylor, John, Mrs.
Sulley & Co., Arthur J.
Widener, Joseph E.
Widener, Peter Arrell Brown

Exhibition History

1834: Modern Artists, Royal Manchester Institution, 1834, no. 53.

1834: Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1834, no. 175.

1854: Pictures Exhibited at a Soirée Given by John Buck Lloyd, Esquire, Mayor of Liverpool, Town Hall, Loverpool, 23 September 1854, no. 2.

1914: Paintings by Thomas Gainsborough, R.A. and J.M.W. Turner, R.A., M. Knoedler & Co., Inc., New York, 1914, no. 35.

1997: Venezia Da Stato a Mito [Venice: From a State to a Myth], Fondazione Giorgio Cini, Venice, 1997, no. 66, repro.

1998: "Near Turner's Point of View": Paintings by J.M.W. Turner and Thomas Moran, The Philbrook Museum of Art, Tulsa, 1998, no. 2, fig. 32.

2003: Turner and Venice, Tate Britain, London; Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, 2003-2004, no. 37, repro.

2003: Turner: The Late Seascapes, Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown; Manchester Art Gallery; The Burrell Collection, Glasgow, 2003-2004, unnumbered catalogue, fig. 22, repro. (shown only in Williamstown).

2007: J.M.W. Turner, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Dallas Museum of Art; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2007-2008, no. 105, repro.

2013: Turner & the Sea, National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, England; Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, 2013-2014, no. 85, repro.

2022: Turner’s Modern World, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Boston, 2022, not in catalogue..

Technical Summary

The canvas is finely plain woven; it was lined in 1971. The ground is white; it is thickly applied and masks the weave of the canvas. There appear to be layers of gray and beige imprimatura in some areas. The painting is executed in freely handled opaque layers ranging from rich, fluid glazes to thick paint; the strongest whites are thickly impasted. Glazes and scumbles are drawn, scraped, and dragged over the paint layers, and the scumbles of white and light-colored paint that create the luminous effect may be gouache or watercolor. The details of architecture and rigging are accomplished with very thin fluid paint occasionally reworked by scratching in with a blunt tool. The thinner paint seems to have been abraded. There is extensive craquelure. Retouching is largely limited to the corners and edges, and to the concealment of cracks. There are substantial residues of an earlier natural resin varnish, which has discolored yellow to a significant degree, beneath the dammar varnish applied in 1971.

Bibliography

1834: Athenaeum 341 (10 May 1834): 355.

1834: London Literary Gazette, no. 903, 10 May 1834: 331.

1834: Manchester Courier and Lancashire General Advertiser, 10, no. 512, 18 October 1834.

1834: Manchester Guardian, 30 August 1834.

1834: Morning Chronicle, 26 May 1834.

1834: Spectator, 7, no. 306, 10 May 1834: 447.

1861: Athenaeum 1781 (14 December 1861): 808.

1915: Roberts, William. Pictures in the Collection of P.A.B. Widener at Lynnewood Hall, Elkins Park, Pennsylvania: British and Modern French Schools, Philadelphia, 1915: unpaginated, repro.

1923: Paintings in the Collection of Joseph Widener at Lynnewood Hall. Intro. by Wilhelm R. Valentiner. Elkins Park, Pennsylvania, 1923: unpaginated, repro.

1931: Paintings in the Collection of Joseph Widener at Lynnewood Hall. Intro. by Wilhelm R. Valentiner. Elkins Park, Pennsylvania, 1931: 14, repro.

1942: Works of Art from the Widener Collection. Foreword by David Finley and John Walker. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1942: 7.

1948: Paintings and Sculpture from the Widener Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1948 (reprinted 1959): 98, repro.

1960: Cooke, Hereward Lester. British Painting in the National Gallery of Art. Washington, D.C., 1960 (Booklet Number Eight in Ten Schools of Painting in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.): 40, color repro.

1964: Rothenstein, John and Martin Butlin. Turner. London, 1964: 52, pl. 98.

1965: Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 132.

1968: National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 119, repro.

1971: George, Hardy. "Turner in Venice." The Art Bulletin 53, no. 1 (March 1971): 84-87.

1975: European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 354, repro.

1975: Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. New York, 1975: no. 603, color repro.

1984: Butlin, Martin, and Evelyn Joll. The Paintings of J.M.W. Tuner. 2 vols. New Haven and London, 1977. (2d rev. ed., 1984): 1:no. 356; 2:color pl. 362.

1984: Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 413, no. 588, color repro.

1985: European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 405, repro.

1986: Treuherz, Julian. "The Turner Collector: Henry McConnel, Cotton Spinner." Turner Studies 6 (1986): 38-39, 40-41, 42, fig. 2.

1992: Hayes, John. British Paintings of the Sixteenth through Nineteenth Centuries. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1992: 274-277, color repro. 275.

1998: Townsend, Richard P., J.M.W. Turner: The Greatest of Landscape Painters. Oklahoma, 1998: 34, no. 32, repro.

2008: Schwander, Martin, ed. Venice: From Canaletto and Turner to Monet. Ostfildern, 2008: 61, fig. 3.