ANTONIO CANAL, IL CANALETTO* (1697-1768)

Details

ANTONIO CANAL, IL CANALETTO* (1697-1768)

A View of Padua: The Brenta Canal and the Porta Portello

black chalk, pen and brown ink, grey wash (partly reworked by a later hand), watermark Strasburg lily
13 1/8 x 25 7/8in. (336 x 657mm.)

Provenance

Elton; Sotheby's, 13 November 1924, lot 98 (to Agnew)
Philip Hofer
W. Grange
The Woodner Collection; Christie's, London, 2 July 1991, lot 123, illustrated (#4,400)

Literature

W. G. Constable, revised by J. G. Links, Canaletto: Giovanni Antonio Canal, 1697-1768, Oxford, 1976, under no. 676

Lot Essay

The view is taken from the west with the Porta Portello, now the Porta Venezia, in the center and, in the distance, the church of the Carmine. Constable, who knew the drawing only from a photograph considered it to be 'perhaps a copy by Bellotto'. Canaletto's prime original is in the Albertina (Constable-Links, no. 676). This was followed rather closely in a picture now at Washington (Constable-Links, no. 375). The present drawing has been associated with a variant of the Washington picture first recorded in the collection of Lord Trent, which was sold at Christie's, London, 7 July 1972, lot 98, see Constable-Links, under no. 375