This post is one of a series of blog posts covering my independent research on previously unidentified locations depicted in John Singer Sargent pieces. Pieces are identified using their Yale University Press ID numbers, as published in the series John Singer Sargent: The Complete Paintings, co-authored by Richard Ormond and Elaine Kilmurray. All findings are my own, represent my own opinions, and were reached using a combination of my own intuition & various publicly available tools, such as Google Maps & Google Street View.

This post covers the location depicted in John Singer Sargent’s piece titled “Side Canal, Venice” (Yale 1081), a beautiful watercolor with a marching rhythm of quintessential Venice features along a side canal in Venice.

Here is the piece in question:

In my opinion, the painting was created on the Rio de San Barnaba, just east of the Campo San Barnaba, looking west. Here is a Google Street View of the approximate location:

Obviously the viewpoint in the painting is lower than that of the Google Street View, and is not as "wide angle". While some of the buildings have since been re-painted (the building in the foreground seems to have received a new white color and had paint removed from the base, and the one behind the bridge perhaps turned pink from white), the rhythm of the buildings, openings (doors & windows), bridge, and campo behind the bridge is unmistakable.

It appears the large chimney stack in the background has since been removed, or cut back, and is now a shorter chimney that does not protrude into the skyline.

These minor modifications - repainting, cutting back chimneys - seem to have been common in Venice throughout its history, even if the buildings themselves remain quite well preserved.

Date of identification: c. 1/15/2024, reported to the authors on 1/17/2024