Oil paint on canvas
Tate Britain
Italy
Tate Collection
Works with images
Works on display
Joseph Mallord William Turner
Turner Bequest
Oil paintings
Collection
Turner owned by Tate
<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/joseph-mallord-william-turner-558" aria-label="More by Joseph Mallord William Turner" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">Joseph Mallord William Turner</a>
Venice Bridge Sighs
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
adults
arcade
architecture
boat - non-specific
boat, gondola
bridge
bridges and viaducts
Byron, George Gordon, Lord, ‘Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage’
canal
cities, towns, villages (non-UK)
countries and continents
features
figure
Gothic
group
groups
industrial
Italy
literature (not Shakespeare)
literature and fiction
medieval
natural phenomena
people
periods and styles
places
reflection
Renaissance
society
townscapes / man-made features
transport: water
Venice, Bridge of Sighs
Venice, Doge’s Palace
waterfront
<p>Turner painted Venice on smaller canvases with a new kind of customer in mind – the middle-classes. Many of them holidayed in Venice, inspired by Romantic poet Byron, who had lived there. He had written movingly of how this once-splendid republic had lost its independence – taken over by Napoleon in 1797 and then Austria in 1815.This glittering painting shows one of Venice’s most famous sights, the Bridge of Sighs, between the Doge’s Palace and the city’s prison. Turner exhibited it with lines adapted from Byron: ‘I stood upon a bridge, a palace and / A prison on each hand’.</p><p><em>Gallery label, October 2023</em></p>
painting oil paint canvas
9 October 2003 – 30 May 2004
2004-05-30
9 October 2003 – 11 January 2004
2004-01-11
2003-10-09
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
15 February 2004 – 30 May 2004
2004-05-30
2004-02-15
Kimbell Art Museum (Fort Worth, USA)
http://www.kimbellart.org
2003-10-09
Turner and Venice
Exhibition
28 May 2007 – 27 July 2009
2009-07-27
28 May 2007
2007-05-28
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2007-05-28
A Turner Gallery
Collection based display
5 August 2009 – 26 July 2010
2010-07-26
5 August 2009 – 26 July 2010
2010-07-26
2009-08-05
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2009-08-05
Italian Odyssey
Collection based display
29 July 2010 – 14 March 2011
2011-03-14
6 August 2010 – 14 March 2011
2011-03-14
2010-08-06
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2010-07-29
Romantics 2
Collection based display
2 September 2011 – 15 April 2012
2012-04-15
2 September 2011 – 15 April 2012
2012-04-15
2011-09-02
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2011-09-02
Romantics
Collection based display
8 February 2013 – 13 April 2014
2014-04-13
8 February 2013 – 19 May 2013
2013-05-19
2013-02-08
Art Gallery of South Australia (Adelaide, Australia)
http://www.artgallery.sa.gov.au
4 June 2013 – 8 September 2013
2013-09-08
2013-06-04
National Gallery of Australia (Canberra, Australia)
8 October 2013 – 18 December 2013
2013-12-18
2013-10-08
Toyko Metropolitan Art Museum (Toyko, Japan)
1 January 2014 – 13 April 2014
2014-04-13
2014-01-01
Kobe City Museum (Kobe, Japan)
2013-02-08
J.M.W. Turner: Makings of a Master
Loan-out
10 September 2014 – 20 September 2015
2015-09-20
10 September 2014 – 25 January 2015
2015-01-25
2014-09-10
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2014-09-10
Late Turner: Painting Set Free
Exhibition
1 October 2016 – 15 January 2017
2017-01-15
1 October 2016 – 15 January 2017
2017-01-15
2016-10-01
Bucerius Kunst Forum (Hamburg, Germany)
http://www.buceriuskunstforum.de
2016-10-01
Venice. City of Artists
Loan-out
6 July 2019 – 2 May 2021
2021-05-02
8 November 2019 – 26 January 2020
2020-01-26
2019-11-08
LWL-Landesmuseum für Kunst und Kulturgeschichte Westfälisches (Munster, Germany)
http://landesmuseum.lwl.org
20 February 2020 – 7 September 2020
2020-09-07
2020-02-20
Frist Center for the Visual Arts (Nashville, USA)
2019-07-06
The Sea and the Alps: Turner's Quest for the Sublime
Tate partnerships & programmes
28 October 2020 – 10 July 2022
2022-07-10
28 October 2020 – 12 September 2021
2021-09-12
2020-10-28
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
17 October 2021 – 6 February 2022
2022-02-06
2021-10-17
Kimbell Art Museum (Fort Worth, USA)
http://www.kimbellart.org
27 March 2022 – 10 July 2022
2022-07-10
2022-03-27
Museum of Fine Arts (Boston, USA)
http://www.mfa.org
2020-10-28
Turner's Modern World
Exhibition
17 October 2021 – 10 July 2022
2022-07-10
17 October 2021 – 6 February 2022
2022-02-06
2021-10-17
Kimbell Art Museum (Fort Worth, USA)
http://www.kimbellart.org
27 March 2022 – 10 July 2022
2022-07-10
2022-03-27
Museum of Fine Arts (Boston, USA)
http://www.mfa.org
2021-10-17
Turner's Modern World
Loan-out
13 March 2023
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2023-03-13
Gallery 107
Collection based display
Venice, the Bridge of Sighs
support: 686 × 914 mm
frame: 868 × 1171 × 129 mm
Accepted by the nation as part of the <a href="/search?gid=999999781" data-gtm-name="tombstone_link_bequest" data-gtm-destination="list-page--search-results">Turner Bequest</a> 1856
<div class="text">
<p>Turner painted Venice on smaller canvases with a new kind of customer in mind – the middle-classes. Many of them holidayed in Venice, inspired by Romantic poet Byron, who had lived there. He had written movingly of how this once-splendid republic had lost its independence – taken over by Napoleon in 1797 and then Austria in 1815.<br/>This glittering painting shows one of Venice’s most famous sights, the Bridge of Sighs, between the Doge’s Palace and the city’s prison. Turner exhibited it with lines adapted from Byron: ‘I stood upon a bridge, a palace and / A prison on each hand’.</p>
</div>

Display caption
2023-10-25T00:00:00
display-caption
DISPLAY_CAPTION
<p><b>383. </b>[<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-venice-the-bridge-of-sighs-n00527" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N00527</span></a>]<b> Venice, the Bridge of Sighs</b> Exh. 1840</p>
<p>THE TATE GALLERY, LONDON (527)</p>
<p>Canvas, 24 × 36 (61 × 91·5)</p>
<p><b>Coll.</b> Turner Bequest 1856 (one of 18–21, 36–40; see below); transferred to the Tate Gallery 1961.</p>
<p><b>Exh.</b> R.A. 1840 (55); R.A. 1974–5 (530, repr.).</p>
<p><b>Lit.</b> Ruskin 1857 (1903–12, xiii, pp. 158–9); Thornbury 1862, i, p. 346; 1877, p. 465; Bell 1901, pp. 138–9 no. 219; Armstrong 1902, p. 234; Finberg 1930, pp. 103, 112, 132, 156, pl. 19; Davies 1946, pp. 151, 186; Davies 1959, pp. 97–8; Finberg 1961, pp. 379, 505 no. 531; Lindsay 1966, pp. 174, 246 no. 34; Gage 1980, p. 176.</p>
<p>Exhibited in 1840 with the following lines based on Byron's <i>Childe Harold's Pilgrimage</i>, Canto iv, verse I:</p>
<p>‘I stood upon a bridge, a palace and
<br/>A prison on each hand.’—<i>Byron</i></p>
<p>In Byron's original text the lines read,</p>
<p>I stood in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs;
<br/>A palace and a prison on each hand:...</p>
<p>The lines show that Turner saw even the beauties of Venice as a sham, concealing the grim realities on which her departed glories had depended.</p>
<p>Most of the critics of the 1840 R.A. exhibition were so shattered by Turner's other contributions that they failed to mention the two Venetian scenes, this picture and the <i>Venice from the Canale della Giudecca, Chiesa di S Maria della Salute, &amp;c</i> (No. 384). Even the critic of the <i>Spectator</i>, who did notice them on 16 May, could not forbear to include them in his general condemnation of ‘mere freaks of chromomania’, the Venetian pictures being included with their ‘sundry patches of white and nankeen, with a bundle of gayer colours... intended to represent buildings and vessels’.</p>
<p>Nos. 383 [<span>N00527</span>], 402 [<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-the-sun-of-venice-going-to-sea-n00535" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N00535</span></a>], 406 [<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-st-benedetto-looking-towards-fusina-n00534" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N00534</span></a>], 411 [<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-venice-maria-della-salute-n00539" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N00539</span></a>], 413 [<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-venice-quay-ducal-palace-n00540" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N00540</span></a>], 416–19 [<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-venice-noon-n00541" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N00541</span></a>-<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-going-to-the-ball-san-martino-n00544" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N00544</span></a>] appear in the 1854 Schedule as nos:</p>
<p>18 and 19, ‘2 Views of Venice in one frame’ each 3'0" × 2'0";
<br/>20 and 21, ‘2 d<sup>0</sup> d<sup>0</sup> d<sup>0</sup>’ each 3'0" × 2'0";
<br/>36 and 37, ‘2 pictures of Venice in one frame’ each 3'0" × 2'0";<br/>38, ‘View in Venice’, 3'0" × 2'0";<br/>39 and 40, each ‘Ditto’ and each 3'0" × 2'0".</p>
<p><b>Published in:</b>
<br/>Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll, <i>The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner</i>, revised ed., New Haven and London 1984
<br/></p>

Catalogue entry
2004-07-14T00:00:00
catalogue-entry
CATALOGUE_ENTRY
adults arcade architecture boat, gondola boat - non-specific bridge bridges and viaducts Byron, George Gordon, Lord, ‘Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage’ canal cities, towns, villages (non-UK) countries and continents features figure Gothic group groups industrial Italy literature and fiction literature (not Shakespeare) medieval natural phenomena people periods and styles places reflection Renaissance society townscapes / man-made features transport: water Venice, Bridge of Sighs Venice, Doge’s Palace waterfront