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Lot Essay
These pictures (and those in the following lot), whose attributions have been confirmed by Charles Beddington, represent an important insight into the early activities of this artist. A terminus ante quem can be established by the depiction, in both pictures of the present lot, of the Torre dell'Orologio prior to the addition of the second attic storey designed by Giorgio Massari and built in 1755. Both views correspond with a pair of slightly smaller pictures by the artist in the Langmatt Foundation, but in each case with alterations in the foreground details (see Z. Häfeli and G. Borghero, catalogue of the exhibition, Mythos Venedig, Baden, 1994, pp. 102-3, no. 35, and p. 108-9, no. 42, both illustrated).
The view of the Isola di San Giorgio clearly depends on Canaletto's view commissioned from the artist as part of a set of four pictures by the Duke of Bolton and subsequently in the collection of the late Major A.F. Clarke-Jervoise (see G. Knox, 'Four Canaletti for the Duke of Bolton', Apollo, October 1993, p. 246, illustrated). The series is dated by Knox to the early 1730s.
The view of the Isola di San Giorgio clearly depends on Canaletto's view commissioned from the artist as part of a set of four pictures by the Duke of Bolton and subsequently in the collection of the late Major A.F. Clarke-Jervoise (see G. Knox, 'Four Canaletti for the Duke of Bolton', Apollo, October 1993, p. 246, illustrated). The series is dated by Knox to the early 1730s.