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Lot Essay
Count Johann Matthias von der Schulenburg (1661-1747) became Field Marshal and Commander in Chief of the Forces of the Venetian Republic in 1715. His defense of Corfu against the Turks in 1715-1716 made him a hero to the Venetians, who erected a statue in his honor and granted him a life pension. He established himself at Palazzo Loredan near San Trovaso in Venice, where in 1724, at the age of sixty-three, he found himself in possession of a group of eighty-eight paintings, mainly from the collections of the Dukes of Mantua, which were ceded to him by a dealer named Giovanni Battista Rota who had defaulted on a loan. This awakened a voracious appetite for collecting and in the remaining two decades of his life he amassed nearly a thousand pictures. Ably assisted by his advisors, first Pittoni and then Piazzetta, Schulenburg acquired works by almost all the leading Venetian painters of his day. His purchases accelerated in the 1730s, and in 1735 he began to send regular shipments to his estates in Germany. A bachelor, he bequeathed the whole of his vast collection to his nephew, with the request that it be preserved intact. Though much of the collection was dispersed as early as 1775, the present work remained in the Schulenburg family for nearly two hundred and fifty years.
Simonini was the leading Venetian battle painter of the early 18th century, and was a natural choice as collaborator for the present portrait, commissioned in 1737, of this outstanding soldier in the Venetian service. Portraits by Nogari are unusual and this is unquestionably the most ambitious.
Simonini was the leading Venetian battle painter of the early 18th century, and was a natural choice as collaborator for the present portrait, commissioned in 1737, of this outstanding soldier in the Venetian service. Portraits by Nogari are unusual and this is unquestionably the most ambitious.