William Callow R.W.S. 1812-1908

Callow first visited Venice in the summer of 1840.  He was there for ten days, industriously sightseeing and sketching.  It was on this visit that Callow met Turner for the second time, for they were both staying at the Hotel Europa.  Callow recalls in his autobiography how Turner had risen every morning and sketched all day until the light faded.  One evening he observed Turner sketching in a gondola 'whilst I was enjoying a cigar...I felt quite ashamed of myself idling away my time whilst he was hard at work so late'  (see H.M.Cundall, ed., William Callow, An Autobiography, 1908, p.67).

Callow returned to Venice again on his honeymoon in the summer of 1846 and returned there on many other occasions throughout his career making his last visit in 1892, at the age of eighty.