(1877-1882) by John Wharlton Bunney (1828-1882).

Bunney's painting of San Marco served as the centre-piece of the Ruskin Collection's first home in the St George's museum at Walkley, and it remains a popular work in the collection today.

Commissioned by Ruskin for the fee of £500, it is a large painting, measuring more than 6 feet across; the unusual level of detail reflecting the painting's intended function as an accurate architectural record.

Cook and Wedderburn, editors of Ruskin's Complete Works, recorded that 'the artist spent upon it no less than six hundred days' constant labour' (Works, 10, p. lxiii).

Watch a short film about the painting made by Sheffield Museums HERE.

by John Ruskin

Pen, ink, and watercolour on paper

Painted over a four-year period, this small work is a beautiful example of Ruskin's ability to find profound wonder and spiritual beauty in nature's smallest, most easily overlooked elements.

In 2019, it was described by The Guardian's art critic Jonathan Jones as 'a mesmerising portrayal of green life entwined in the ancient scars and turbulent strata of a steep rocky mass.'

Read a Country Life article about this picture and the artist HERE.

Ruskin considered Tintoretto's "Paradiso" (or “The Paradise”) "the most precious thing Venice possesses" and the greatest work Tintoretto ever created. It is over 10 metres tall and 25 metres wide and covers an entire wall of the council chamber in the Doge's Palace. This painting depicts only a detail.