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Venice, Calm at Sunrise Turner, Joseph Mallord William (draughtsman)
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Title/s	Venice, Calm at Sunrise
Maker/s	Turner, Joseph Mallord William (draughtsman) [ULAN info: British artist, 1775-1851]
Category	drawing
Name	drawing
School/Style	British
Technique Description	watercolour over black chalk with pen and red ink on paper
Dimensions	height: 222 mm width: 325 mm
Date	1840
Provenance	given: Ruskin, John 1861 (Filtered for: Paintings, Drawings and Prints)
Documentation	(2005) Treasures of the Fitzwilliam Museum, London: Scala [page: 94] Ruskin, John Works, [page: 558] Armstrong, Walter (1902) Turner, London? [page: 229] (1929) The Principal Pictures in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge (1929), London? [page: 229] [comments: repr.] Finberg, A. J. (1930) In Venice with Turner, London? [page: 112, 135,] [comments: and p. 161; repr. pl. XXV] Gage, John (1974-5) Turner, 1775-1851, London?: Tate Gallery [comments: under no. 552] Cormack, Malcolm (1975) J.M.W. Turner, R.A. 1775-1851; a catalogue of Drawings and Watercolours in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, Cambridge (Cambs.): Cambridge University Press [page: 66] [comments: cat. no. 39, pl. 39 (black and white) and as frontispiece (colour)] Wilton, Andrew (1979) The Life and Work of J.M.W. Turner, London? [comments: no. 1361] Stainton, Lindsay (1985) Turner's Venice, [page: 59-60] [comments: as "S. Giogrio Maggiore and S. Maria della Salute, calm at sunrise 1840?"]
Notes	Ruskin though this watercolour ‘first rate’. Although he considered it to be a ‘companion’ to 'Venice, storm at sunset', exhibited alongside, there is no indication that this was Turner’s intention. During his two-week stay in Venice between August and September 1840, Turner made 180 summary sketches of the city in ‘roll’ sketchbooks, often returning to views and subjects which he had drawn on earlier occasions. A view of San Giorgio and its distinctive campanile (seen on the left) in morning light had been among the four watercolours which he had painted during his first, brief visit in 1819, and clearly attracted his attention again it would have been easily visible from his hotel over twenty years later. Technically and stylistically, it is a remarkably assured work, in which Turner completely reverses the eighteenth century notion of watercolour as a tinted drawing by using pen and red ink to define form only after the initial, thin watercolour washes had been floated across the paper. (Text from 'Ruskin's Turners' Exhibition Website).
Material/s	watercolour (medium) black chalk (medium) red ink (medium) paper (support)
Accession Number	591 (Paintings, Drawings and Prints) (Reference Number: 13997; Input Date: 2000-10-10 / Last Edit: 2011-07-22)

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Venice, Calm at Sunrise

Turner, Joseph Mallord William (draughtsman)