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Through a golden haze and across an expanse of gently rippling water dotted with boats, ghostly ivory and parchment-white buildings rise along a distant shore in this loosely painted horizontal landscape. The misty horizon comes about a third of the way up the composition, and the sky above is mostly butter yellow with a few touches of shell pink, and a patch of topaz blue in the upper left corner. Closest to us, in the lower right corner, several honey-yellow boats are pulled up to a parchment-white dock. Touches of charcoal gray, peacock green, ruby red, and mauve pink suggest cloth or other objects filling the boats and piled on the corner of the dock. A few strokes of white, blush pink, and brick red suggest several people beyond a low wall or other structure to our right. Farther back and to our left, streaks and swipes of coral red, pale yellow, and gold suggest boats along a dock. Along the horizon, in the distance opposite us, there is a golden-yellow building with a tower on its front façade. Beyond this building, a cream-white structure with two tall domes rises against the sky. Along the horizon to either side, blended smudges of lilac purple, rose pink, and aquamarine blue suggest more buildings and boats. The buildings and boats are reflected in the loosely painted, straw-yellow water. The artist signed the painting as if he had written his initials on the wall near the lower right corner, “JMWT.”

Joseph Mallord William Turner

The Dogana and Santa Maria della Salute, Venice, 1843

Not on View

Medium

oil on canvas

Dimensions

overall: 62 x 93 cm (24 7/16 x 36 5/8 in.)

framed: 86 x 116.5 cm (33 7/8 x 45 7/8 in.)

Credit Line

Given in memory of Governor Alvan T. Fuller by The Fuller Foundation, Inc.

Accession Number

1961.2.3

Artists / Makers

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

Image Use

This image is in the public domain.
Read our full Open Access policy for images .

Inscription

lower right: JMWT

Provenance

Purchased 1843 from exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts, London, by Edwin Bullock, Hawthorn House, Handsworth, Birmingham; (sale, Christie, Manson & Woods, London, 21 and 23 May 1870, 1st day, no. 143); bought by (Thos. Agnew & Sons), London, who sold it that same day to John Fowler (later Sir John Fowler, Bt.) [1817-1898], Thornwood Lodge, Campden Hill, London; (sale, Christie, Manson & Woods, London, 6 May 1899, no. 79); bought by (Thos. Agnew & Sons), London, for James Ross, Montreal; (sale, Christie, Manson & Woods, London, 8 July 1927, no. 28, repro.); bought by (Thos. Agnew & Sons), London, for Alvin T. Fuller, Boston [d. 1958]; The Fuller Foundation; gift 1961 to NGA.

Associated Names

Agnew & Sons, Ltd., Thomas
Bullock, Edwin
Christie, Manson & Woods, Ltd.
Fowler, Bt., John, Sir
Fuller Foundation, Inc.
Fuller, Alvan T.
Ross, James

Exhibition History

1843: Modern Works of Art, Birmingham Society of Artists, Athenaeum, Temple Row, Birmingham, 1843, no. 54.

1843: Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1843, no. 144.

1899: Loan Collection of Pictures and Drawings by J.M.W. Turner, R.A., City Museum and Art Gallery, Birmingham, 1899, no. 7.

1899: Twenty Masterpieces of the English School, Thos. Agnew & Sons, Ltd., 1899, no. 19.

1904: Society of American Collectors Comparative Exhibition of Native and Foreign Art, American Fine Arts Society Galleries, 1904, no. 165, as Venice, the Dogana and Santa Maria della Salute.

1928: Exhibition of Paintings Loaned by Governor Alvan T. Fuller, Art Club, Boston, 1928, no. 46.

1939: Paintings Drawings Prints from Private Collections in New England, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1939, no. 133, pl. 65.

1946: Paintings Drawings and Prints by J.M.W. Turner, John Constable, R.P. Bonington, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1946, no. 17.

1959: A Memorial Exhibition of the Collection of the Honorable Alvan T. Fuller, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1959, no. 33, repro.

1974: Turner 1775-1851, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1974-1975, no. 533, color repro.

1986: Turner, National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo; Municipal Museum, Kyoto, 1986, no. 50, color repro.

1989: Discerning Tastes: Montreal Collectors 1880-1920, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, 1989-1990, 156-160, no. 57.

1993: The Art of Seeing: John Ruskin and the Victorian Eye, Phoenix Art Museum; Indianapolis Art Museum, 1993, fig. 22.

1997: Joseph Mallord William Turner, Kunstforum Wien, Vienna, 1997, no. 93, repro.

2002: Loan for display with permanent collection, Cincinnati Art Museum, 2002-2003.

2003: Turner: The Late Seascapes, Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown; Manchester Art Gallery; The Burrell Collection, Glasgow, 2003-2004, unnumbered catalogue, fig. 82, repro. (shown only in Manchester and Glasgow).

2008: Venice: From Canaletto and Turner to Monet, Fondation Beyeler, Basel, 2008-2009, unnumbered catalogue, repro.

2010: La Serenissima : Eighteenth-Ventury Venetian Art from North American Collections, Oklahoma City Museum of Art, 2010-2011, no. 50, repro.

2018: John Ruskin: Le Pietre di Venezia, Palazzo Ducale, Venice, 2018.

Technical Summary

The medium-weight canvas is somewhat coarsely plain woven; it has been lined.
The ground is white, of moderate thickness. The painting is executed with white
paint brushed onto the ground with thick strokes, and probably by palette knife,
to create the impasted highlights; several layers of transparent washes were
then applied, probably with some use of watercolor in the uppermost layers. The
impasto has been flattened during lining; otherwise the painting is in excellent
condition. The synthetic varnish applied when the picture was surface cleaned
in 1976 has not discolored.

Bibliography

1843: Athenaeum 816 (17 June 1843): 570.

1843: Spectator, 16, no. 776, 13 May 1843: 451.

1843: The Times (London), 9 May 1843.

1930: Finberg, Alexander Joseph. In Venice with Turner. London, 1930: 148.

1962: Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds. Treasures from the National Gallery of Art. New York, 1962: 142, color repro.

1963: Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. New York, 1963 (reprinted 1964 in French, German, and Spanish): 322, repro.

1965: Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 133.

1966: Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds. A Pageant of Painting from the National Gallery of Art. 2 vols. New York, 1966: 2:374, color repro.

1968: Cooke, Hereward Lester. Painting Lessons from the Great Masters. London, 1968: 232, details and color repro. opp.

1968: National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 120, repro.

1975: European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 356, repro.

1975: Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. New York, 1975: no. 601, color repro.

1980: Collected Correspondence of J.M.W. Turner. Edited by John Gage. Oxford, 1980: no. 261.

1984: Butlin, Martin, and Evelyn Joll. The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner. 2 vols. New Haven and London, 1977 (2d rev. ed., 1984): 1:no. 403; 2:color pl. 409.

1984: Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 413, no. 586, color repro.

1985: European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 406, repro.

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: 283-285, repro. 285.

2007: Warrell, Ian, ed. J.M.W. Turner. Exh. cat. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Dallas Museum of Art; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. London and Washington, D.C., 2007: 243.