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artist or maker

Guardi, Francesco (b.1712, d.1793)

Date

c 1755-1770

dated stylistically and on buildings shown

Place of production

Venice, Italy

Medium

oil on canvas

Type of object

paintings

Accession number

2212.2

View of Venice with boats in the foreground. The view is taken from the Piazzetta of San Marco. On the left are the island and Church of San Giorgio Maggiore, and, at the right, the Dogana and the Church of Santa Maria della Salute. In the centre distance part of the Giudecca is visible, with the Church of Le Zitelle. In the foreground there are several large open sailing boats known as bragozzi used for trading and fishing with standing men wearing working clothes aboard. A boat to the right carries barrels. Two mooring posts protrude from the water at the lower right. Several rowing boats and gondolas surround the boats. In the centre mid-ground, there is a file of ambassadorial gondolas proceeding towards the Lido.

This painting and its companion (acc. no. 2212.1) are the largest known works by Guardi. They are early examples of the real and idealised views of Venice with which he made his reputation. The large scale and prominent signature may have been part of Guardi’s campaign to assert his independence from his family’s studio, in which he had begun his career producing altarpieces and mythological painting.

Commentary

Related drawings suggest that Guardi planned to have the compositions engraved, which would have disseminated the cityscapes to a wider audience.

This canvas shows a view from the Piazzetta of San Marco. Guardi integrated elements of the religious and mercantile life of the city, work, leisure and courtly display. On the left is the island and church of San Giorgio Maggiore; on the right, the Dogana (Customs House) and the church of Santa Maria della Salute. Part of the Giudecca with the church of Le Zitelle is visible in the centre distance. The foreground is animated by open sailing boats used for trading and fishing, with men in working clothes aboard. Rowing boats and gondolas surround them. A file of ambassadorial gondolas proceeds towards the Lido.

The work was conceived as a pair with the canvas that hangs beside it: a view from the church of San Giorgio looking across the water in the opposite direction. They may have originally been intended to hang opposite each other.

Guardi explored the same views in numerous other painting, varying the scale, the selection of buildings, the arrangement of boats, and the changing effects of light and atmosphere. Several other view painters had painted these views, including Canaletto (1697-1768), whose works were popular with English patrons and hung in the Venetian palaces that Guardi hoped his works would occupy. This might have motivated his interest in Canaletto’s figures and composition, whose influence is clearly visible here. The strong contrast between light and shade has been exaggerated over time by chemical changes in the bole armeniac used to prepare the canvas.

It is not known who commissioned these prestigious paintings. It may have been a Venetian associated with one of the buildings depicted. It might turn out to have been a Frenchman. The pair’s size and colouring would have suited the decorative schemes and light-coloured panelling of French interiors of the time. In the late eighteenth century the works entered the collection of the French soldier and Minister of War, Louis-Félix de Félix, Maréchal du Muy, possibly as a gift from Louis XVI.

The dealer Martin Colnaghi brought the paintings to England in 1859. He failed to sell them at that time, but, in 1876, he opened a showroom in London, named the Guardi Galleries, and tried again. Ferdinand de Rothschild bought them for Waddesdon Manor, which was then under construction. The East Gallery was designed to accommodate them. The architect Gabriel-Hippolye Destailleur also designed the frames with which the enormous paintings were integrated into the panelling. They may have reminded Ferdinand of his family and its traditions of collecting. Ferdinand's father Anselm owned a pair of much smaller canvases with similar views by Guardi, now in the Musée N. de Camondo in Paris.

Phillippa Plock, 2011

Physical description

Dimensions (mm) / weight (mg)

2845 x 4238
Approx 3000 x 4150 - sight

Signature & date

signed, lower right, on barrel on third boat from right: Fran.co / Guardi / F.

History

Provenance

Traditionally said to have been presented by Louis XVI (b.1754, d.1793) to Comte du Muy Louis Nicolas Victor de Félix d'Ollières, Maréchal de Muy (b.1711, d.1775) possibly when he became Minister of War in 1774 or Maréchal de France in 1775 but highly unlikely; by descent to Marquis du Muy, Ferdinand de Félix (d.1859) of Marseille; bought from the estate of Ferdinand de Félix by Martin Colnaghi (b.1821, d.1908) who imported them to England and put them up for sale anonymously 18 June 1859, lot 92, but bought them in for 1450 guineas; showed in Colnaghi's Guardi Galleries, Haymarket, London, 1876; bought by Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild (b.1839, d.1898 ) soon after 1876; inherited by his sister Alice de Rothschild (b.1847, d.1922); inherited by her great-nephew James de Rothschild (b.1878, d.1957); bequeathed to Waddesdon (National Trust) in 1957.

Exhibition history

'European Masters of the 18th Century', Winter Exhibition, Royal Academy, London, 1954-1955, no 68, lent by James A. de Rothschild

Collection

Waddesdon (National Trust)
Bequest of James de Rothschild, 1957

Bibliography

Minor Topics: Francesco Guardi, The Art Journal, 1876, 222; p. 222.
George A. Simonson; Francesco Guardi, 1712-1793; London; Metheun; 1904; p. 98, no. 269.
James Byam Shaw, Guardi at the Royal Academy, The Burlington Magazine, 97, 1955, 12-19; pp. 12-15, fig. 15; as c. 1760.
Sir Francis Watson, Venetian Paintings at the Royal Academy 1954-55, Arte Veneta, 9, 1955, 253-264; pp. 256-59; as 1760-1763.
Vittorio Moschini; Francesco Guardi; London; William Heinemann; 1956; p. 26, fig. 59.
Antonio Morassi, Fasti e nefasti del Settecento veneziano, Emporium, CXXIII, 1956, 4; p. 3, figs 14, 15.
Michael Levey, French and Italian Paintings at Waddesdon, Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 54, August 1959, 57-66; pp. 63-65, fig. 8; as after 1760.
Antonio Morassi, Paul Underwood; Circa gli esordi del vedutismo di Francesco Guardi con qualche cenno sul Marieschi; Studies in the History of Art dedicated to William E. Suida on his Eightieth Birthday, London, Samuel Kress Foundation, Phaidon Press, 1959; 338-352; pp. 339, 348.
Francis Haskell, Francesco Guardi as Vedutista and Some of His Patrons, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 23, 1960, 256-276; p. 274.
Rodolfo Pallucchini; La pittura veneziana del Settecento; Venice; Istituto per la collaborazione culturale; 1960; p. 243, fig. 635.
Ellis Waterhouse, Anthony Blunt; Paintings: The James A. de Rothschild Collection at Waddesdon Manor; Fribourg; Office du Livre, The National Trust; 1967; p. 308, cat. no. 155, ill.; as 1755-1760.
Antonio Morassi, Inediti di Francesco Guardi, Arte Illustrata, 3-4, 1968, 24-39; p. 36, figs 18-19.
Dario Succi; Francesco Guardi: itinerario dell'avventura artistica; Cinisello Balsamo; Amilcare Pizzi s.p.a; 1993; pp. 49-50, 55, 60, 82, fig. 45; as 1768-1770.
Antonio Morassi; Guardi - L'Opera Completa; 3 vols; Venice; Electa; 1993; vol. 1, pp. 231-32, 240, 242, 389, cat. no. 419, figs. 441, 422; as 'Bacino di S. Marco con S. Giorgio Maggiore, punta di Dogana e la Salute'
♦, ♦; Jeanne Faton, Waddesdon Manor: joyau des collections anglaises, L'Estampille. L' Objet d'Art, September 2002; p. 94.
♦, ♦; Stephen Ongpin; Jean-Luc Baroni Ltd. An Exhibition of Master Drawings and Oil Sketches; Adam Williams Fine Art, New York, 10 May - 3 June 2005; Jean-Luc Baroni Ltd, London, 1 - 23 July 2005 CHECK DATES: WMH copy has 3 May - 2 June 2006 and (London) 30 June - 28 July; London; Jean-Luc Baroni; 2005; no. 29, fig. 1.
♦; Bozena Kowalcyk; Canaletto Guardi les deux maîtres vénitiens; Musée Jacquemart-André (14 september - 14 January 2013); Brussels; Fonds Mercator; 2012; pp. 40, 43, fig. 4.

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