PIETRO BELLOTTI (VENICE 1725-1804/1805 TOULOUSE?)
PIETRO BELLOTTI (VENICE 1725-1804/1805 TOULOUSE?)
PIETRO BELLOTTI (VENICE 1725-1804/1805 TOULOUSE?)
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PIETRO BELLOTTI (VENICE 1725-1804/1805 TOULOUSE?)
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Property from a Private Collection
PIETRO BELLOTTI (VENICE 1725-1804/1805 TOULOUSE?)

Venice with the Punta della Dogana, looking East towards the Doge's Palace; and Venice with the Grand Canal, S. Geremia and the entrance to the Cannaregio

Details
PIETRO BELLOTTI (VENICE 1725-1804/1805 TOULOUSE?)
Venice with the Punta della Dogana, looking East towards the Doge's Palace; and Venice with the Grand Canal, S. Geremia and the entrance to the Cannaregio
oil on canvas
27 1⁄2 x 35 1⁄4 in. (69.8 x 89.5 cm.)
(2)a pair
Provenance
Anonymous sale; Koller, Zurich, 19 September 2008, lot 3077 (View of the Bacino di San Marco) as 'Venetian School, circa 1800' (180,000 CHF); and lot 3078 (View of Venice with the Grand Canal), as 'Circle of Bernardo Bellotto' (214,000 CHF).
with Charles Beddington, London, from whom acquired by the present owner.

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Clementine Sinclair
Clementine Sinclair Senior Director, Head of Department

Lot Essay

Pietro Bellotti was the younger brother of Bernardo Bellotto, and like him used the name by which their maternal uncle, Antonio Canal, Canaletto was known. The research of both Charles Beddington and Domenico Crivellari, published in the exhibition catalogue Pietro Bellotti, un altro Canaletto, Venice, Ca’ Rezzonico, 2013-14, has clarified the sustained, if at times itinerant, career that evidently began in his uncle’s workshop and took the artist by way of Genoa, Nantes, Paris and London to Toulouse.
Born into the greatest family of vedutisti, the most surprising aspect of Pietro's painting career is how little his work resembles that of any other member of his family. He developed a distinct aesthetic from his older brother Bernardo, despite documentary evidence that he trained under Bernardo for a year in 1741-2. His colouring was his own invention, typically with bright turquoise for the water, light brown for the buildings and vivid red and blue accents in the figures.
Many of Bellotti’s pictures were based on compositions by Canaletto, however the present views appear to be original designs and early works that date to the 1740s when Bellotti was still in Italy. The view of the Punta della Dogana, looking East towards the Doge's Palace, with Santa Maria Maggiore on the right, is unlike any recorded view by Canaletto or Bellotto; Canaletto, for example, typically favoured a view towards Santa Maria Maggiore from the other side of the Punta della Dogana, although there are two versions of the Bacino di San Marco: looking East (Milton Park and The Wallace Collection; Constable, op. cit., pp. 250-51, nos. 132 and 134), which also show the Punta della Dogana from near the Giudecca Canal, albeit from a different and elevated viewpoint.
The present view of Venice with the Grand Canal, S. Geremia and the entrance to the Cannaregio is closer to a painting by Canaletto, which is known in numerous versions and of which the prototype was acquired in 1762 by George III from Joseph Smith, British Consul in Venice (Royal Collection, RCIN 400532). The latter was engraved by Visentini in 1735. Constable also records a version of the composition in the collection of Bernard Désarnauts, Toulouse, which he attributed to Bellotti (104 x 151 cm.; op. cit., p. 313, no. 251e). The present version shows the entrance to the Cannaregio canal from further back than Canaletto’s viewpoint and we therefore get a wider view of the waterfront with the foreground taken up by the busy quay rather than entirely by water. The presence of the balustrade and statue on the opposite quay outside S. Geremia gives us a terminus post quem for the painting as an inscription on the base of the statue gives the date of its being erected as 1742.

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