Approach to Venice
Joseph Mallord William Turner1844
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC
Washington, DC, United States
When Approach to Venice was first exhibited in 1844, Joseph Mallord William Turner quoted Lord Byron in the catalog description: “The moon is up, and yet it is not night / The sun as yet disputes the day with her.” In Turner’s colorful view of Venice, a full moon shares the sky with the setting sun as a flotilla of barges and gondolas makes its way across the lagoon. Late in his career Venice served as a mystical muse for Turner, and the artist produced dozens of watercolor and oil paintings that explored the expressive effects of air, light, and water on the Italian city’s architecture and waterways.
More information on this painting can be found in the Gallery publication _British Paintings of the Sixteenth through Nineteenth Centuries_, which is available as a free PDF <u>https://www.nga.gov/content/dam/ngaweb/research/publications/pdfs/british-paintings-16th-19th-centuries.pdf</u>
- Title: Approach to Venice
- Creator: Joseph Mallord William Turner
- Date Created: 1844
- Physical Dimensions: overall: 62 x 94 cm (24 7/16 x 37 in.) framed: 88 x 118.4 x 12.4 cm (34 5/8 x 46 5/8 x 4 7/8 in.)
- Provenance: William Wethered [d. 1863], King's Lynn, Norfolk, and by 1849, London. Benjamin Godfrey Windus [1790-1867],[1] Tottenham, after 1847;[2] (sale, Christie, Manson & Woods, London, 20 June 1853, no. 5); (Ernest Gambart, Paris, Brussels, and London). Charles Birch, Edgbaston and London; (sale, Messrs. Foster, London, 28 February 1856, no. 57); bought by Wallis. Joseph Gillott, Edgbaston, by 1860. (Ernest Gambart, Paris, Brussels, and London); purchased 1863 by (Thos. Agnew & Sons, London); sold 1863 to James Fallows, who exchanged it later that year for pictures by Alfred Elmore and P.F. Poole with (Thos. Agnew & Sons, London); sold to (J. Smith, London).[3] Bought 1870 from the executors of Smith's estate by (Thos. Agnew & Sons, London); sold 1871 to W. Moir; passed to Mrs. Emma Moir; sold 1899 to (Thos. Agnew & Sons, London); purchased the same year by Sir Charles Clow Tennant, 1st bt. [1823-1906], The Glen, near Innerleithen, Peeblesshire, Scotland; by descent to his grandson, Christopher Grey Tennant, 2nd baron Glenconner [1899-1983], The Glen;[4] sold July 1923 to (Charles Carstairs for M. Knoedler & Co., London and New York); purchased November 1923 by Andrew W. Mellon, Pittsburgh and Washington, D.C.; deeded 28 December 1934 to The A.W. Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust, Pittsburgh; gift 1937 to NGA. [1] Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll, _The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner_, 2 vols., 2nd rev. ed., (New Haven and London, [1977] 1984), I: no. 412, begin their provenance with Windus. [2] The picture is not mentioned by Thomas Tudor, who visited Windus on 21 June 1847, as being among the latter's collection of Turners at that time (Butlin and Joll, as per note 1 above, I: 259). [3] This is probably John Mountjoy Smith (1805-1869), who took over the firm when his father, John Smith (1781-by 1855), the picture dealer of 137 New Bond Street, retired in 1837. The information was kindly provided by Julia Armstrong-Totten; see her e-mail, 1 March 2011, in NGA curatorial files. (In the 1992 NGA catalogue of its British paintings, the elder Smith was incorrectly suggested as possibly being this Smith.) For more about the Smith firm, see Charles Sebag-Montefiore, with Julia I. Armstrong-Totten, _A Dynasty of Dealers: John Smith and Successors, 1801-1924: A Study of the Art Market in Nineteenth-Century London_, Arundel and London, 2013. [4] NGA curatorial files.
- Medium: oil on canvas
Get the app
Explore museums and play with Art Transfer, Pocket Galleries, Art Selfie, and more
