The city is indistinctly silhouetted on the horizon and a violent storm is about to engulf it. This is Turner’s only Venetian work in which he includes a steamer. To create the effect of the broken trail of steam rising from the boat, the artist dabbed the paint. His fingerprints are just visible on the surface of the watercolour. Steamships appear in a number of Turner’s paintings; in all of these works he chronicles rather than condemns the advance of modern travel and technology.