William Callow R.W.S.

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 early every morning and sketched all day until the absence of light made drawing impossible.  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 on a number of occasions afterwards, making his last visit in 1892, at the age of eighty.