Lot Essay
This drawing was used by Francesco Guardi as the basis for a picture now in the National Gallery, London, A. Morassi, Guardi, Milan, 1984 (ed. 1973), I, pp. 433-4, no. 664; II, fig. 620.
It seems to be the direct source for Guardi's composition: he only introduced a few additions, such as a gondola and a fisherman in the middle distance. All the elements of the design including the two boats with figures in the foreground and the mast in the right background, are already present in the drawing.
Canaletto represented the Torre di Malghera, seen from the other side, in two further works. He first drew it in a capriccio known in two versions, in the British Museum and in the Museum of Fine Art, Boston, W.G. Constable and J.G. Links, op. cit., nos. 795-6, pl. 150. Canaletto further depicted the tower in an eponymous etching, in the series of 31 prints dedicated to Consul Smith and datable to the early 1740s, R. Bromberg, Canaletto's etchings, London and New York, 1974, no. 2, illustrated.
It was not until the 1750s when Guardi was already in his forties that he took up view painting. Canaletto's patron, Consul Smith, may have been responsible for the sale of many of Guardi's earliest vedute to English patrons, such as Lord Brudenell, later the Marquess of Monthermer, and Sir Brook Bridges, F. Russell, Guardi and the English Tourist, The Burlington Magazine, CXXXVIII, 1996, p. 9. Bridges was in Venice in 1757 and commissioned from Guardi a Festa of Giovedi Grasso in the Piazza San Marco dated 1758. Lord Brudenell stayed in Venice from 1758 until early 1760 and presumably acquired six Guardis which were later in the collection of the Dukes of Buccleuch.
Consul Smith's patronage of both Canaletto and Guardi may partly explain why many of Guardi's early views are influenced by Canaletto's vedute: his View of the Molo looking West (A. Morassi, op. cit., no. 415, fig. 435) is copied with only minor differences from Canaletto's picture sold by Consul Smith to the Duke of Leeds, W.G. Constable and J.G. Links, op. cit., no. 95, pl. 27. Guardi's picture of A Rustic House on the Lagoon with a ruined Portico is derived from Canaletto's print of The Portico with the Lantern, R. Bromberg, op. cit., no. 10, illustrated.
The View of Dolo by Guardi (A. Morassi, op. cit., no. 699, fig. 625) is seen from the same angle and shows the same details as Canaletto's painting in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, W.G. Constable, op. cit., no. 371, illustrated.
Guardi painted a further series of twelve pictures based on Brustolon's engravings after Canaletto of the Solennità Dogali, see A. Morassi, op. cit., nos. 243-254, figs. 268-284, for the paintings and W.G. Constable, op. cit., p. 673, for the prints.
These pictures were most probably commissioned through Consul Smith, and the younger artist would base them on the most readily available vedute in Venice, such as the Canalettos owned by Smith. Guardi's Torre di Malghera in the National Gallery may be the picture sold by De Blaquer at Christie's, 2 June 1808, lot 22.
The Torre di Malghera, or Marghera, near Mestre was built as a fortification by the Venetians in the 15th Century; it was destroyed in 1842.
It seems to be the direct source for Guardi's composition: he only introduced a few additions, such as a gondola and a fisherman in the middle distance. All the elements of the design including the two boats with figures in the foreground and the mast in the right background, are already present in the drawing.
Canaletto represented the Torre di Malghera, seen from the other side, in two further works. He first drew it in a capriccio known in two versions, in the British Museum and in the Museum of Fine Art, Boston, W.G. Constable and J.G. Links, op. cit., nos. 795-6, pl. 150. Canaletto further depicted the tower in an eponymous etching, in the series of 31 prints dedicated to Consul Smith and datable to the early 1740s, R. Bromberg, Canaletto's etchings, London and New York, 1974, no. 2, illustrated.
It was not until the 1750s when Guardi was already in his forties that he took up view painting. Canaletto's patron, Consul Smith, may have been responsible for the sale of many of Guardi's earliest vedute to English patrons, such as Lord Brudenell, later the Marquess of Monthermer, and Sir Brook Bridges, F. Russell, Guardi and the English Tourist, The Burlington Magazine, CXXXVIII, 1996, p. 9. Bridges was in Venice in 1757 and commissioned from Guardi a Festa of Giovedi Grasso in the Piazza San Marco dated 1758. Lord Brudenell stayed in Venice from 1758 until early 1760 and presumably acquired six Guardis which were later in the collection of the Dukes of Buccleuch.
Consul Smith's patronage of both Canaletto and Guardi may partly explain why many of Guardi's early views are influenced by Canaletto's vedute: his View of the Molo looking West (A. Morassi, op. cit., no. 415, fig. 435) is copied with only minor differences from Canaletto's picture sold by Consul Smith to the Duke of Leeds, W.G. Constable and J.G. Links, op. cit., no. 95, pl. 27. Guardi's picture of A Rustic House on the Lagoon with a ruined Portico is derived from Canaletto's print of The Portico with the Lantern, R. Bromberg, op. cit., no. 10, illustrated.
The View of Dolo by Guardi (A. Morassi, op. cit., no. 699, fig. 625) is seen from the same angle and shows the same details as Canaletto's painting in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, W.G. Constable, op. cit., no. 371, illustrated.
Guardi painted a further series of twelve pictures based on Brustolon's engravings after Canaletto of the Solennità Dogali, see A. Morassi, op. cit., nos. 243-254, figs. 268-284, for the paintings and W.G. Constable, op. cit., p. 673, for the prints.
These pictures were most probably commissioned through Consul Smith, and the younger artist would base them on the most readily available vedute in Venice, such as the Canalettos owned by Smith. Guardi's Torre di Malghera in the National Gallery may be the picture sold by De Blaquer at Christie's, 2 June 1808, lot 22.
The Torre di Malghera, or Marghera, near Mestre was built as a fortification by the Venetians in the 15th Century; it was destroyed in 1842.