A second Venetian series, released for Jaeger-LeCoultre’s participation in the Homo Faber Biennale at the Fondazione Giorgio Cini on San Giorgio Maggiore. Turner was already 44 when he first reached Venice, his imagination primed by Shakespeare and Byron; he visited in late summer, when humidity softened the outlines of buildings and the lagoon became a mirror. Across his career he produced roughly 150 watercolours and as many as 900 drawings, often at astonishing speed. All four watches use paillonnage — strips of silver foil laid beneath the enamel — to give the water a texture and glint before it is painted over.
Sources: JLC — Turner Q39334W4 · Oracle of Time · Mr Watchmaster · The Hour Markers · Watch Collecting Lifestyle
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The site of the Homo Faber exhibition itself, painted by Turner in 1834. The soft green of the water is echoed by both the green alligator strap and the dial on the reverse.
Turner frames the city from inside the porch of the Salute, using the architecture as a proscenium arch for the light beyond.
Three Venetian landmarks compressed into one composition — the Bridge of Sighs, the Doge’s Palace and the Dogana together.
A darker foreground set against glowing reflected light. When Turner exhibited this 1840 work he paired it with two lines adapted from Byron: “I stood upon a bridge, a palace and a prison on each hand” — a lament for the fallen Venetian Republic. A wavy, lavender-tinted guilloché dial (41 lines, 369 lathe passages) evokes the rippling light on the canals.