Venice, from the Porch of Madonna della Salute

Turner painted Venice repeatedly after his first visit in 1819, and this view of the Grand Canal seen from the porch of the Salute church belongs to his luminous Venetian series of the 1830s. The canvas dissolves the famous panorama into veils of light and reflections, pushing his late manner of evanescent colour about as far as any oil he made in the decade. It is one of several Venetian views commissioned and bought by John Ruskin, whose admiration secured for Turner’s Venice its modern fame.