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Lot Essay
Field Marshal Count Johann Matthias von der Schulenburg (1661-1747), for whom the present pictures were painted, ranks with Consul Smith as one of the most remarkable patrons and collectors in Venice in the 18th Century. Between 1724 and his death in 1747 he amassed over 900 pictures, including works by almost all of the leading Venetian painters of his day, an achievement made all the more exceptional by the fact that he did not start collecting until the age of sixty-three.
Born into a Saxon family closely related to the Hanoverian dynasty, Schulenburg chose a military career and served in most of the great wars of Europe of the late 17th and early 18th Centuries, fighting for the Austrians in the Hungarian campaign against the Turks, 1687-8, for the House of Savoy, for Augustus the Strong of Saxony against Charles XII of Sweden, and in the Wars of the Spanish Succession, leading the infantry under the command of Prince Eugene at Malplaquet. His brilliant defence of Corfu against superior Turkish forces in 1715 and 1716 earned him the admiration of Europe, and particularly of the Venetians, in whose employ he was to remain for 30 years. He established himself in Venice at the Palazzo Loredan, San Trovaso, and in 1724 began his collection in style by buying from a dealer, Giovanni Battista Rota, no less than 88 paintings, most of them formerly in the collection of the Dukes of Mantua. Ably advised by Pittoni and subsequently Piazzetta, Schulenburg's purchases accelerated in the 1730s and in 1735 he began to send crates of pictures back to his estates in Germany. Unmarried, he bequeathed the whole of his collection to his nephew with the request that it be preserved intact. About 150 pictures were sold at Christie's on 12-13 April 1775 and many have been included in London sales since 23 June 1982, but the collection is particularly well documented and can to a large extent be reconstructed (see, above all, A. Binion, La Galleria scomparsa del maresciallo von der Schulenburg, Milan, 1990; for shorter analyses of the marshal's activities as patron and collector, see A. Binion, From Schulenburg's Gallery and Records, The Burlington Magazine, CXII, no. 806, May 1970, pp. 297-303, and F. Haskell, Patrons and Painters. Art and Society in Baroque Italy, New Haven and London, 1980, pp. 310-15).
Antonio Guardi seems to have enjoyed a closer relationship with Schulenburg than any other artist, as, in addition to the individual payments he received for specific commissions, the painter - uniquely - was paid a monthly retainer by the marshal. Schulenburg's account books survive for the period May 1730-13 April 1745 and these list the regular payments of this salary, which was set at 1 zecchino 5 lire per month until March 1736; it was then raised to 1 zecchino 10 lire and subsequently in May of the same year to 2 zecchini 16 lire, presumably on account of the amount of work done. Guardi was employed principally as a copyist, of the work of Venetian contemporaries as well as of famous Venetian paintings of the 16th Century, and as a portraitist, most of his portraits also being based by necessity on prototypes by other artists. Of all his work for Schulenburg, Guardi asserted his originality above all in the 43 turcherie or quadri de costumi turchi, all measuring approximately 46 x 62cm., for which the marshal's account books record ten payments at two zecchini each between 1 February 1742 and 15 December 1743. These are also loosely based on earlier models, engravings after paintings by Jean-Baptiste van Mour (1671-1737), who had been for many years the sultan's official painter, but in his evident delight in the exoticism of the subject matter Guardi breathes life into the stiff figures of his Franco-Flemish precursor.
Schulenburg clearly held a particular affection for the series of paintings of his great opponents, keeping it in his Venetian home in the 'stanza del colonnello Arcoleo' rather than shipping it back to Germany. Its dispersal began shortly after his death, however, and only recently has a significant quantity of its constituents been rediscovered (see Bettagno, op. cit., passim).
Ten years after the reappearance of the present pictures in these Rooms in 1977-8, Dr. Dario Succi published both as the work of an 'inidentificato collaboratore della bottega'. The first painting was, however, subsequently reinstated in Guardi's oeuvre by Beal, loc. cit., and Pedrocco and Montecuccoli degli Erri, loc. cit., and Binion's publication of the documents revealing the artist's position in Schulenburg's household show that he can hardly have had studio assistants.
Born into a Saxon family closely related to the Hanoverian dynasty, Schulenburg chose a military career and served in most of the great wars of Europe of the late 17th and early 18th Centuries, fighting for the Austrians in the Hungarian campaign against the Turks, 1687-8, for the House of Savoy, for Augustus the Strong of Saxony against Charles XII of Sweden, and in the Wars of the Spanish Succession, leading the infantry under the command of Prince Eugene at Malplaquet. His brilliant defence of Corfu against superior Turkish forces in 1715 and 1716 earned him the admiration of Europe, and particularly of the Venetians, in whose employ he was to remain for 30 years. He established himself in Venice at the Palazzo Loredan, San Trovaso, and in 1724 began his collection in style by buying from a dealer, Giovanni Battista Rota, no less than 88 paintings, most of them formerly in the collection of the Dukes of Mantua. Ably advised by Pittoni and subsequently Piazzetta, Schulenburg's purchases accelerated in the 1730s and in 1735 he began to send crates of pictures back to his estates in Germany. Unmarried, he bequeathed the whole of his collection to his nephew with the request that it be preserved intact. About 150 pictures were sold at Christie's on 12-13 April 1775 and many have been included in London sales since 23 June 1982, but the collection is particularly well documented and can to a large extent be reconstructed (see, above all, A. Binion, La Galleria scomparsa del maresciallo von der Schulenburg, Milan, 1990; for shorter analyses of the marshal's activities as patron and collector, see A. Binion, From Schulenburg's Gallery and Records, The Burlington Magazine, CXII, no. 806, May 1970, pp. 297-303, and F. Haskell, Patrons and Painters. Art and Society in Baroque Italy, New Haven and London, 1980, pp. 310-15).
Antonio Guardi seems to have enjoyed a closer relationship with Schulenburg than any other artist, as, in addition to the individual payments he received for specific commissions, the painter - uniquely - was paid a monthly retainer by the marshal. Schulenburg's account books survive for the period May 1730-13 April 1745 and these list the regular payments of this salary, which was set at 1 zecchino 5 lire per month until March 1736; it was then raised to 1 zecchino 10 lire and subsequently in May of the same year to 2 zecchini 16 lire, presumably on account of the amount of work done. Guardi was employed principally as a copyist, of the work of Venetian contemporaries as well as of famous Venetian paintings of the 16th Century, and as a portraitist, most of his portraits also being based by necessity on prototypes by other artists. Of all his work for Schulenburg, Guardi asserted his originality above all in the 43 turcherie or quadri de costumi turchi, all measuring approximately 46 x 62cm., for which the marshal's account books record ten payments at two zecchini each between 1 February 1742 and 15 December 1743. These are also loosely based on earlier models, engravings after paintings by Jean-Baptiste van Mour (1671-1737), who had been for many years the sultan's official painter, but in his evident delight in the exoticism of the subject matter Guardi breathes life into the stiff figures of his Franco-Flemish precursor.
Schulenburg clearly held a particular affection for the series of paintings of his great opponents, keeping it in his Venetian home in the 'stanza del colonnello Arcoleo' rather than shipping it back to Germany. Its dispersal began shortly after his death, however, and only recently has a significant quantity of its constituents been rediscovered (see Bettagno, op. cit., passim).
Ten years after the reappearance of the present pictures in these Rooms in 1977-8, Dr. Dario Succi published both as the work of an 'inidentificato collaboratore della bottega'. The first painting was, however, subsequently reinstated in Guardi's oeuvre by Beal, loc. cit., and Pedrocco and Montecuccoli degli Erri, loc. cit., and Binion's publication of the documents revealing the artist's position in Schulenburg's household show that he can hardly have had studio assistants.