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Lot Essay
This breathtaking view of the Feast of Ascension Day has been largely inaccessible to scholars, having appeared at auction only twice in its 300-year history, in 1751 and 1993. It is in a remarkable state of preservation – the surface of the painting is beautifully textured and the impasto on many of the figures intact – and this is in large part due to its relatively few passages in ownership. The painting is first recorded at 10 Downing Street, in the collection of Britain’s first Prime Minister, Sir Robert Walpole (1676–1745). This distinguished early eighteenth-century provenance has only recently come to light and was not known at the time of the painting’s sale in 1993. Canaletto painted the view at the beginning of the 1730s, a highpoint in the artist’s career and a time during which his views were in great demand, particularly among British collectors. Exceedingly ambitious in both scale and conception, this is Canaletto’s earliest known representation of the Bucintoro returning to the Molo on Ascension Day; a subject to which he would return repeatedly throughout the ensuing two decades.
Falling on the fortieth day after Easter Sunday, the Feast of the Ascension of Christ was the most spectacular of all Venetian festivals and was frequently commented upon by visitors and travellers who witnessed it. It was on this day exclusively that the Bucintoro, the official galley of the Doge of Venice and a symbol of the Serenissima, was used. The model depicted here, the last to be made at the Arsenale, was designed by Stefano Conti and decorated by the sculptor Antonio Corradini, identifiable by the lion – symbol of the city of Venice – on the prow and the figure of Justice. Accompanied by the city’s officials, the doge would sail out to the Lido on the Bucintoro and cast a ring into the water, a symbolic act representing the marriage of Venice to the sea. It was a ceremony that brought the entire city together and remained a key date in the Venetian calendar until the fall of the Republic in 1797. Given the popularity of Ascension Day among tourists in Venice, views of the occasion by Canaletto were in particular demand and several different treatments of the celebrations by the artist are known, though these vary in viewpoint, scale and staffage.
The Bacino di San Marco, where the scene is set, was the usual – and certainly the most thrilling – point of arrival for visitors coming to Venice by sea. This oblique panoramic view looks west towards the entrance to the Grand Canal and the composition is framed by the Punta della Dogana at left and the Molo, in sharply angled perspective, at right. In the centre is the Bucintoro, decorated in red and gold, moored between gondolas and other boats alongside the Piazzetta. The impressive buildings lining the waterfront provide the perfect backdrop to the pomp and spectacle of Ascension Day, with the principal landmarks forming a theatrical backdrop to the lively boats and staffage. Particularly prominent are the Palazzo Ducale, with its unique Gothic forms and distinctive pink Verona marble patterned façade, and the towering Campanile behind. The picture is imbued with the warm tonality of an early summer’s day. The lagoon is populated with elegantly-dressed figures reclining in gondolas, the moored Bucintoro stands majestically beyond, and a crowd of onlookers gathers on the Molo in the distance.
Canaletto’s technique is supremely confident: controlled flicks of the brush evoke feathered parasols and trailing ribbons. Vivid accents of colour guide the viewer’s eye around the composition, with touches of vibrant red punctuating the entire composition. As noted by Viola Pemberton-Pigott, ‘despite the impression of colour and brightness in so many of Canaletto’s paintings, his range of pigments is remarkably limited’ (V. Pemberton-Pigott, ‘The Development of Canaletto’s Painting Technique’, in K. Baetjer and J. G. Links eds., Canaletto, exhibition catalogue, The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1989, p. 58). Canaletto seems to have already mastered the formula for creating the effect of rippled water, as pale arcs skip across the surface of the lagoon. He demonstrates an assured touch in describing figures in movement, even those in different planes. The elegant protagonists in the gondolas are painted as individual characters whilst the throng gathered on the Molo pulsates with life despite being painted in abbreviated form as ‘calligraphic squiggles’ (Pemberton-Pigott, op. cit., p. 57). The foreground figures are given an almost three-dimensional structure through the application and manipulation of the paint itself, with Canaletto’s vivid use of impasto – so characteristic of his paintings in the 1730s – beautifully preserved. The artist demonstrates complete mastery of his medium and technique: as Pemberton-Pigott observes, Canaletto ‘has learned to control the viscosity of the binding medium so that the paint retains its shape and assumes the form it represents’, such as the folds and creases of voluminous skirts and shawls or the gilded ornamentation of the Bucintoro, which stands out in relief (op. cit., p. 54). The scene as a whole has an airy, spontaneous quality and yet Canaletto’s technique is very precise. His architecture is meticulously constructed, with every building outlined and detailed with rigorous precision. Canaletto used a ruler and incising instrument ‘sometimes for laying in his design into the ground layers and sometimes for outlining or incising architectural details into the upper paint layers’ (ibid., p. 54): this is clearly evident on the ground-floor arcade of the Palazzo Ducale and Palazzo delle Prigioni at far right.
Canaletto planned his painted compositions carefully and this is confirmed by the existence of the Cagnola Sketchbook, a book of 138 pages of architectural drawings, now in the Gallerie dell’Accademia, Venice. In that sketchbook there are drawings for the whole panoramic view of the Bacino di San Marco – spanning from the church of San Giorgio Maggiore at left to the Palazzo delle Prigioni at right (fig. 1). Although dating from the 1730s, and thus placed in relation to the series of paintings for the Duke of Bedford at Woburn Abbey, we can safely assume that Canaletto would have made similar use of drawings when composing the present view slightly earlier in the decade. The drawings that survive vary in finish from rapidly sketched building outlines drawn by eye or from memory, called ‘scaraboti’ (‘scribbles’) by Canaletto, to more careful drawings of buildings in red or black pencil, worked over in black or brown ink. The latter are frequently annotated with the names of shops and colours, while building materials and numbers of windows, arches or columns are also noted. Canaletto also made use of a camera obscura (pinhole camera) in the elaborate process of planning his compositions. With it, he was able to sketch out individual buildings or record partial detailed views, assembling them later into a visually more coherent whole. Canaletto was singled out by the eighteenth-century art historian Antonio Maria Zanetti the Younger (1706–1778) for his ability in ‘correcting’ the distortions of the projected image to ensure that his compositions aligned more closely with what the eye perceived. Though Canaletto ‘frequently shows a disregard for topographical precision’, he went to ‘considerable lengths to disguise his use of [the camera obscura], notably by giving the impression that viewpoints had been used which were, in fact, unattainable’ (Beddington, op. cit, 2021, p. 28).
Canaletto demonstrates a great sensitivity to changing weather conditions, intersecting a fluffy white cloud at centre with a bold horizontal brushstroke, painted wet-in-wet, and applying a streaky haze on the horizon. A gentle breeze can be felt through the water ripples in the Bacino and the movement of the gondoliers’ feathered caps.
This view dates from about 1732, with the 1730s being considered ‘the great decade of Canaletto’s production of Venetian views’ (Beddington, op. cit., 2010, p. 24). It was during these years that he received some of his most distinguished commissions from British patrons, notably the series of views for the Duke of Bedford, still at Woburn Abbey. In the 1720s Canaletto had rapidly cornered the market in painting Venetian views and the merchant and banker, Joseph Smith (c.1674-1770), British Consul in Venice from 1744 to 1760, took the painter under his wing. Acting as his principal agent and dealer, Smith did a great deal to promote the artist among the British clientele in addition to commissioning works from Canaletto himself. This particular view would prove to be extremely popular and Canaletto would adopt a similar viewpoint for notable paintings of the same subject later in the 1730s; a large canvas commissioned by the Duke of Bedford and still at Woburn Abbey (1732-36; fig. 2); another painted for the Duke of Leeds, today in the National Gallery, London (c. 1738); and a third on loan from the Thyssen-Bornemisza collection to the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, Barcelona (c. 1739). The view under examination here is the earliest and marks the starting point for Canaletto painting festivals; a genre which, by the fifth decade of the eighteenth century, the painter and his studio had turned into a specialty.
The Return of the Bucintoro on Ascension Day was formerly accompanied by a pendant showing The Grand Canal, looking North-East from Palazzo Balbi to the Rialto Bridge (private collection; fig. 3). The two paintings share a remarkable early history, having been owned by Britain’s first Prime Minister, the great patron and collector Sir Robert Walpole. Their presence in Walpole’s collection was first noticed by Sir Oliver Millar, who found them referenced in the 1736 manuscript catalogue of paintings at 10 Downing Street and in the 1751 sale (see Links, op. cit., 1998). The Return of the Bucintoro on Ascension Day is to be identified with the first of the ‘Canalletti’ hanging ‘In the Parlour’, described as no. 125, ‘The Doge of Venice in His Barge, with Gondola’s & Masqueraders’ (fig. 4). This reference is particularly significant for it is the earliest record of a Canaletto painting hanging in a house in England, predating George III’s purchase of Consul Joseph Smith’s Canalettos by a quarter of a century.
The Downing Street residence was offered to Sir Robert Walpole by King George II in 1732. The British architect William Kent gutted the interiors of two adjacent properties and united them to create a new complex of sixty rooms. Sir Robert and his wife took up residence in 1735, remaining there until Walpole left office in 1742, whereupon he took his collection of pictures to Houghton Hall in Norfolk. Sir Robert had begun collecting in the 1720s and his 1736 inventory lists 154 paintings at 10 Downing Street, 120 at Houghton, 78 at Orford House in the grounds of the Royal Hospital, Chelsea, and 66 in his five-bay terrace house at 16 Grosvenor Street, Mayfair, with its first-floor Great Room where pictures were displayed. It is not known how or when Sir Robert acquired this magnificent view and its pendant. It may have been through his son Edward, who was dispatched to Venice charged with acquiring works of art between January 1730 and March 1731, though both views are datable on stylistic grounds to circa 1731-32 and, as such, slightly postdate Edward’s Venetian sojourn. Whilst no doubt facilitated by Edward’s connections in Venice, the purchase of the pictures must have been instigated by the refurbishment of the Downing Street residence in 1732-35.
The original picture-hanging plans for ‘Treasury House’, 10 Downing Street, by Isaac Ware survive in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Taken together with the 1736 inventory, they allow for an accurate reconstruction of the arrangement of pictures. The Return of the Bucintoro on Ascension Day and its pendant hung on either side of the fireplace in the first-floor Parlour, also known as the ‘North East Corner Room’ (figs. 5 and 6). A number of old masters were on display in this room, including a pair of pictures by Francesco Solimena, two described as by Castiglione (now attributed to Antonio Maria Vassallo), and a painting by David Teniers the Younger which was paired with a kitchen scene by Paul de Vos. As noted by Andrew Moore, ‘the effect of these paintings in the rooms at Downing Street was quite stunning and it was here that the collection acquired its early reputation’ (L. Dukelskaya and A. Moore, op. cit., 2002, p. 24).
CANALETTO AT DOWNING STREET
Sir Robert Walpole (fig. 7) was a collector and patron of the highest order, making full use of the financial opportunities of his long period in power as First Lord of the Treasury and Prime Minister for his own sake and that of members of his family. He formed a collection of old master pictures which outshone even that of John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough and stimulated three architects in succession to create at Houghton what was effectively his own masterpiece and remains one of the great achievements of European architecture. Of pictures he was a connoisseur rather than a patron, and this majestic view and its former pendant were unquestionably the greatest works by a contemporary painter that he acquired.
It is likely that Sir Robert obtained the pair through the agency of the banker and merchant, Joseph Smith, himself a discriminating collector, who was the intermediary in many and perhaps most commissions to Canaletto. Placed prominently in his ‘official’ residence, 10 Downing Street, the pictures must have been seen by many of Walpole’s associates, although it was not until a century later that the young Benjamin Disraeli inveighed about the ‘Venetian constitution’ of the early Georgian period. Venice of course had had a long diplomatic association with England and members of the Whig oligarchy, many of whose ancestors had disassociated themselves from the cause of King Charles II, were clearly aware that his execution had a precedent in that of Doge Marino Faliero.
Views of Venice were no doubt in demand for visual reasons, but for the Whig patron clearly – as the correspondence of the 4th Duke of Bedford demonstrates – had an added appeal as representations of an aristocratic republic, whose monarch, the doge, had restricted powers. The great Whig families were closely interrelated and it was on their patterns of local patronage that the stability of Walpole’s administration was partly based. Ten such families who acquired pictures by Canaletto, or in one case copies after Canaletto by an assistant, can be linked on a single genealogical table. Of Walpole’s key associates, a number including the 2nd Duke of Richmond (who held the key office of Master of the Horse), the 3rd Duke of Devonshire (Lord Privy Seal), and the 2nd Duke of Argyll (Field-Marshal) bought pictures by Canaletto, as did the Lord Lincoln, nephew and heir of the 1st Duke of Newcastle, that unrivalled master of the art of exercising control through local patronage. The office of Lord Lieutenant of counties was central to what might be thought of as the Newcastle system. Among those who held high office in the Whig interest and acquired works by Canaletto were the 3rd Duke of Bedford (Bedfordshire, Devonshire and Glamorgan), the 3rd Duke of Devonshire (Derbyshire) and the 3rd Duke of Bolton (Dorset and Southamptonshire), as well as the Duke of Newcastle himself (Middlesex, 1714-62). The Duke of Manchester (Huntingdonshire) had no need for Venetian views by Canaletto as he owned Luca Carlevarijs’ celebrations of his father’s embassy to Venice, while Viscount Bateman (Herefordshire) had to make do with copies by an assistant of pictures done for his brother-in-law, the Duke of Bedford. For these men and numerous others their Canalettos were not just consummate works of art and in many cases appealing mementoes of their Grand Tours, but also seductive statements of the durability of an aristocratic republic that balanced the views and capricci of ancient Rome, the history and literature of which had been central to their education. Walpole’s two great views of Venice by Canaletto have thus epicentral positions in the patterns of eighteenth-century taste and political attitudes in England.
Canaletto’s views were sold at auction by Sir Robert’s grandson, George Walpole, in 1751. In the manuscript copy of the sale held in the National Art Library at the Victoria & Albert Museum, The Return of the Bucintoro on Ascension Day appears as lot 65: ‘Ditto [Cannaletti]. The Marriage of the Sea by the Doge, its Companion’, where it sold for £34-13 to ‘Raymond for Gideon’. Mr Raymond may be identifiable with Jones Raymond (1706–1769), a Director of the East Indies Company who was an amateur engraver and collector. From 1739 Raymond was a client of Arthur Pond, from whom he purchased prints and Old Master pictures, including a landscape by Rembrandt and a view of the Campo Vaccino by Gian Paolo Panini (in 1745) and a landscape by ‘Rysdale’ (presumably Jacob or Salomon van Ruysdael) in 1748 (see L. Lippincott, ‘Arthur Pond’s Journal of Receipts and Expenses, 1734-1750’, The Walpole Society, 54, 1988, pp. 273, 295). As Lippincott observes, Jones Raymond was ‘one of Pond’s best patrons’ and ‘spent £676 for fifty European paintings at twenty-seven auctions’ (L. Lippincott, Selling Art in Georgian London. The Rise of Arthur Pond, London, 1983, p. 63). He was also the purchaser in 1756 of Francisco de Zurbarán’s Benjamin, from the series of Jacob and his Twelve Sons (the rest of which is at Auckland Castle, Bishop Auckland).
The ‘Gideon’ on whose behalf Raymond purchased the work is Samson Gideon (1699-1762), whose name appears as the first line of provenance in W.G. Constable’s catalogue of Canaletto’s paintings. The son of an eminent West Indian merchant, Samson Gideon was a celebrated Jewish financier who rose to prominence and amassed a great personal fortune in the City of London. Gideon sought to use his great wealth to establish his family among the ranks of Britain’s landed aristocracy and eventually secured a baronetcy for his son, Sampson. In 1751, the same year in which he acquired Canaletto’s two views at auction, he used part of his enormous fortune to acquire Belvedere House in Kent. He added a ‘great room’, in which he assembled his remarkable collection of pictures containing ‘none but pieces which are the originals by the greatest masters, and some of them very capital’ (Dodsley, op. cit., 1761). These included, among others, works such as Peter Paul Rubens’s Gerbier Family (National Gallery of Art, Washington) and Bartolomé Esteban Murillo's Immaculate Conception (National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne), as well as important Dutch old masters. Canaletto’s paintings passed by descent to his son, Sampson, and at the latter’s death to his only surviving heir, his daughter Maria, who was painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds at Sampson Gideon’s instigation (fig. 8).
The Return of the Bucintoro on Ascension Day is remarkable for having remained in private hands for nearly 200 years, passing through family descent from 1751 to 1930. It was purchased by Agnew’s in that year (together with its pendant) and sold ten years later to Giuseppe Bellesi, a Florentine art dealer based in London. Bellesi had founded The Italian Art Gallery in 1926, first located in Savile Row, then moved to New Bond Street and latterly to Duke Street. During the Second World War Bellesi returned to live in Italy and on his return to London in 1948 he reopened his gallery at 15 Paddington Green. It seems likely that Bellesi sold the painting to Mario Crespi, in whose collection both Canalettos were published in 1954 (see Moschini, op. cit.). The eldest son of Benigno Crespi, Senator Mario Crespi was an important figure in Italy during the first half of the 20th century. When his father died in 1910, Mario and his two brothers inherited an empire that included the publishing group that controlled the Corriere della Sera. In 1952 he moved with his wife to a palazzo on via Sant’Andrea in Milan where, after a lengthy restoration project, he was to display his impressive collection of 18th-century Venetian paintings.
The Return of the Bucintoro was presumably acquired in Paris in the 1960s by a French collector, together with its pendant of The Grand Canal, looking North-East from Palazzo Balbi to the Rialto Bridge. The two paintings remained together until the present work’s sale at Ader Tajan in 1993 where, appearing at auction for the first time in nearly 250 years, it fetched a record price for an old master painting at auction in France. The exceptional pictorial quality, distinguished provenance and exceptional condition of both pictures ensured that when the pendant was sold in 2005, it made a world record price for the artist at auction; a title it still holds twenty years later.
This highly evocative view of The Return of the Bucintoro on Ascension Day is a supreme example of Canaletto’s early maturity. Painted at the cusp of the 1730s, a decade during which the artist would receive many of his most prestigious commissions, it is testimony to Canaletto’s prodigious talent and exacting technique. The artist’s masterful views, replete with details and unparalleled in atmospheric effects, made him the most successful vedutista of his age and influenced succeeding generations of landscape painters.
Falling on the fortieth day after Easter Sunday, the Feast of the Ascension of Christ was the most spectacular of all Venetian festivals and was frequently commented upon by visitors and travellers who witnessed it. It was on this day exclusively that the Bucintoro, the official galley of the Doge of Venice and a symbol of the Serenissima, was used. The model depicted here, the last to be made at the Arsenale, was designed by Stefano Conti and decorated by the sculptor Antonio Corradini, identifiable by the lion – symbol of the city of Venice – on the prow and the figure of Justice. Accompanied by the city’s officials, the doge would sail out to the Lido on the Bucintoro and cast a ring into the water, a symbolic act representing the marriage of Venice to the sea. It was a ceremony that brought the entire city together and remained a key date in the Venetian calendar until the fall of the Republic in 1797. Given the popularity of Ascension Day among tourists in Venice, views of the occasion by Canaletto were in particular demand and several different treatments of the celebrations by the artist are known, though these vary in viewpoint, scale and staffage.
The Bacino di San Marco, where the scene is set, was the usual – and certainly the most thrilling – point of arrival for visitors coming to Venice by sea. This oblique panoramic view looks west towards the entrance to the Grand Canal and the composition is framed by the Punta della Dogana at left and the Molo, in sharply angled perspective, at right. In the centre is the Bucintoro, decorated in red and gold, moored between gondolas and other boats alongside the Piazzetta. The impressive buildings lining the waterfront provide the perfect backdrop to the pomp and spectacle of Ascension Day, with the principal landmarks forming a theatrical backdrop to the lively boats and staffage. Particularly prominent are the Palazzo Ducale, with its unique Gothic forms and distinctive pink Verona marble patterned façade, and the towering Campanile behind. The picture is imbued with the warm tonality of an early summer’s day. The lagoon is populated with elegantly-dressed figures reclining in gondolas, the moored Bucintoro stands majestically beyond, and a crowd of onlookers gathers on the Molo in the distance.
Canaletto’s technique is supremely confident: controlled flicks of the brush evoke feathered parasols and trailing ribbons. Vivid accents of colour guide the viewer’s eye around the composition, with touches of vibrant red punctuating the entire composition. As noted by Viola Pemberton-Pigott, ‘despite the impression of colour and brightness in so many of Canaletto’s paintings, his range of pigments is remarkably limited’ (V. Pemberton-Pigott, ‘The Development of Canaletto’s Painting Technique’, in K. Baetjer and J. G. Links eds., Canaletto, exhibition catalogue, The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1989, p. 58). Canaletto seems to have already mastered the formula for creating the effect of rippled water, as pale arcs skip across the surface of the lagoon. He demonstrates an assured touch in describing figures in movement, even those in different planes. The elegant protagonists in the gondolas are painted as individual characters whilst the throng gathered on the Molo pulsates with life despite being painted in abbreviated form as ‘calligraphic squiggles’ (Pemberton-Pigott, op. cit., p. 57). The foreground figures are given an almost three-dimensional structure through the application and manipulation of the paint itself, with Canaletto’s vivid use of impasto – so characteristic of his paintings in the 1730s – beautifully preserved. The artist demonstrates complete mastery of his medium and technique: as Pemberton-Pigott observes, Canaletto ‘has learned to control the viscosity of the binding medium so that the paint retains its shape and assumes the form it represents’, such as the folds and creases of voluminous skirts and shawls or the gilded ornamentation of the Bucintoro, which stands out in relief (op. cit., p. 54). The scene as a whole has an airy, spontaneous quality and yet Canaletto’s technique is very precise. His architecture is meticulously constructed, with every building outlined and detailed with rigorous precision. Canaletto used a ruler and incising instrument ‘sometimes for laying in his design into the ground layers and sometimes for outlining or incising architectural details into the upper paint layers’ (ibid., p. 54): this is clearly evident on the ground-floor arcade of the Palazzo Ducale and Palazzo delle Prigioni at far right.
Canaletto planned his painted compositions carefully and this is confirmed by the existence of the Cagnola Sketchbook, a book of 138 pages of architectural drawings, now in the Gallerie dell’Accademia, Venice. In that sketchbook there are drawings for the whole panoramic view of the Bacino di San Marco – spanning from the church of San Giorgio Maggiore at left to the Palazzo delle Prigioni at right (fig. 1). Although dating from the 1730s, and thus placed in relation to the series of paintings for the Duke of Bedford at Woburn Abbey, we can safely assume that Canaletto would have made similar use of drawings when composing the present view slightly earlier in the decade. The drawings that survive vary in finish from rapidly sketched building outlines drawn by eye or from memory, called ‘scaraboti’ (‘scribbles’) by Canaletto, to more careful drawings of buildings in red or black pencil, worked over in black or brown ink. The latter are frequently annotated with the names of shops and colours, while building materials and numbers of windows, arches or columns are also noted. Canaletto also made use of a camera obscura (pinhole camera) in the elaborate process of planning his compositions. With it, he was able to sketch out individual buildings or record partial detailed views, assembling them later into a visually more coherent whole. Canaletto was singled out by the eighteenth-century art historian Antonio Maria Zanetti the Younger (1706–1778) for his ability in ‘correcting’ the distortions of the projected image to ensure that his compositions aligned more closely with what the eye perceived. Though Canaletto ‘frequently shows a disregard for topographical precision’, he went to ‘considerable lengths to disguise his use of [the camera obscura], notably by giving the impression that viewpoints had been used which were, in fact, unattainable’ (Beddington, op. cit, 2021, p. 28).
Canaletto demonstrates a great sensitivity to changing weather conditions, intersecting a fluffy white cloud at centre with a bold horizontal brushstroke, painted wet-in-wet, and applying a streaky haze on the horizon. A gentle breeze can be felt through the water ripples in the Bacino and the movement of the gondoliers’ feathered caps.
This view dates from about 1732, with the 1730s being considered ‘the great decade of Canaletto’s production of Venetian views’ (Beddington, op. cit., 2010, p. 24). It was during these years that he received some of his most distinguished commissions from British patrons, notably the series of views for the Duke of Bedford, still at Woburn Abbey. In the 1720s Canaletto had rapidly cornered the market in painting Venetian views and the merchant and banker, Joseph Smith (c.1674-1770), British Consul in Venice from 1744 to 1760, took the painter under his wing. Acting as his principal agent and dealer, Smith did a great deal to promote the artist among the British clientele in addition to commissioning works from Canaletto himself. This particular view would prove to be extremely popular and Canaletto would adopt a similar viewpoint for notable paintings of the same subject later in the 1730s; a large canvas commissioned by the Duke of Bedford and still at Woburn Abbey (1732-36; fig. 2); another painted for the Duke of Leeds, today in the National Gallery, London (c. 1738); and a third on loan from the Thyssen-Bornemisza collection to the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, Barcelona (c. 1739). The view under examination here is the earliest and marks the starting point for Canaletto painting festivals; a genre which, by the fifth decade of the eighteenth century, the painter and his studio had turned into a specialty.
The Return of the Bucintoro on Ascension Day was formerly accompanied by a pendant showing The Grand Canal, looking North-East from Palazzo Balbi to the Rialto Bridge (private collection; fig. 3). The two paintings share a remarkable early history, having been owned by Britain’s first Prime Minister, the great patron and collector Sir Robert Walpole. Their presence in Walpole’s collection was first noticed by Sir Oliver Millar, who found them referenced in the 1736 manuscript catalogue of paintings at 10 Downing Street and in the 1751 sale (see Links, op. cit., 1998). The Return of the Bucintoro on Ascension Day is to be identified with the first of the ‘Canalletti’ hanging ‘In the Parlour’, described as no. 125, ‘The Doge of Venice in His Barge, with Gondola’s & Masqueraders’ (fig. 4). This reference is particularly significant for it is the earliest record of a Canaletto painting hanging in a house in England, predating George III’s purchase of Consul Joseph Smith’s Canalettos by a quarter of a century.
The Downing Street residence was offered to Sir Robert Walpole by King George II in 1732. The British architect William Kent gutted the interiors of two adjacent properties and united them to create a new complex of sixty rooms. Sir Robert and his wife took up residence in 1735, remaining there until Walpole left office in 1742, whereupon he took his collection of pictures to Houghton Hall in Norfolk. Sir Robert had begun collecting in the 1720s and his 1736 inventory lists 154 paintings at 10 Downing Street, 120 at Houghton, 78 at Orford House in the grounds of the Royal Hospital, Chelsea, and 66 in his five-bay terrace house at 16 Grosvenor Street, Mayfair, with its first-floor Great Room where pictures were displayed. It is not known how or when Sir Robert acquired this magnificent view and its pendant. It may have been through his son Edward, who was dispatched to Venice charged with acquiring works of art between January 1730 and March 1731, though both views are datable on stylistic grounds to circa 1731-32 and, as such, slightly postdate Edward’s Venetian sojourn. Whilst no doubt facilitated by Edward’s connections in Venice, the purchase of the pictures must have been instigated by the refurbishment of the Downing Street residence in 1732-35.
The original picture-hanging plans for ‘Treasury House’, 10 Downing Street, by Isaac Ware survive in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Taken together with the 1736 inventory, they allow for an accurate reconstruction of the arrangement of pictures. The Return of the Bucintoro on Ascension Day and its pendant hung on either side of the fireplace in the first-floor Parlour, also known as the ‘North East Corner Room’ (figs. 5 and 6). A number of old masters were on display in this room, including a pair of pictures by Francesco Solimena, two described as by Castiglione (now attributed to Antonio Maria Vassallo), and a painting by David Teniers the Younger which was paired with a kitchen scene by Paul de Vos. As noted by Andrew Moore, ‘the effect of these paintings in the rooms at Downing Street was quite stunning and it was here that the collection acquired its early reputation’ (L. Dukelskaya and A. Moore, op. cit., 2002, p. 24).
CANALETTO AT DOWNING STREET
Sir Robert Walpole (fig. 7) was a collector and patron of the highest order, making full use of the financial opportunities of his long period in power as First Lord of the Treasury and Prime Minister for his own sake and that of members of his family. He formed a collection of old master pictures which outshone even that of John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough and stimulated three architects in succession to create at Houghton what was effectively his own masterpiece and remains one of the great achievements of European architecture. Of pictures he was a connoisseur rather than a patron, and this majestic view and its former pendant were unquestionably the greatest works by a contemporary painter that he acquired.
It is likely that Sir Robert obtained the pair through the agency of the banker and merchant, Joseph Smith, himself a discriminating collector, who was the intermediary in many and perhaps most commissions to Canaletto. Placed prominently in his ‘official’ residence, 10 Downing Street, the pictures must have been seen by many of Walpole’s associates, although it was not until a century later that the young Benjamin Disraeli inveighed about the ‘Venetian constitution’ of the early Georgian period. Venice of course had had a long diplomatic association with England and members of the Whig oligarchy, many of whose ancestors had disassociated themselves from the cause of King Charles II, were clearly aware that his execution had a precedent in that of Doge Marino Faliero.
Views of Venice were no doubt in demand for visual reasons, but for the Whig patron clearly – as the correspondence of the 4th Duke of Bedford demonstrates – had an added appeal as representations of an aristocratic republic, whose monarch, the doge, had restricted powers. The great Whig families were closely interrelated and it was on their patterns of local patronage that the stability of Walpole’s administration was partly based. Ten such families who acquired pictures by Canaletto, or in one case copies after Canaletto by an assistant, can be linked on a single genealogical table. Of Walpole’s key associates, a number including the 2nd Duke of Richmond (who held the key office of Master of the Horse), the 3rd Duke of Devonshire (Lord Privy Seal), and the 2nd Duke of Argyll (Field-Marshal) bought pictures by Canaletto, as did the Lord Lincoln, nephew and heir of the 1st Duke of Newcastle, that unrivalled master of the art of exercising control through local patronage. The office of Lord Lieutenant of counties was central to what might be thought of as the Newcastle system. Among those who held high office in the Whig interest and acquired works by Canaletto were the 3rd Duke of Bedford (Bedfordshire, Devonshire and Glamorgan), the 3rd Duke of Devonshire (Derbyshire) and the 3rd Duke of Bolton (Dorset and Southamptonshire), as well as the Duke of Newcastle himself (Middlesex, 1714-62). The Duke of Manchester (Huntingdonshire) had no need for Venetian views by Canaletto as he owned Luca Carlevarijs’ celebrations of his father’s embassy to Venice, while Viscount Bateman (Herefordshire) had to make do with copies by an assistant of pictures done for his brother-in-law, the Duke of Bedford. For these men and numerous others their Canalettos were not just consummate works of art and in many cases appealing mementoes of their Grand Tours, but also seductive statements of the durability of an aristocratic republic that balanced the views and capricci of ancient Rome, the history and literature of which had been central to their education. Walpole’s two great views of Venice by Canaletto have thus epicentral positions in the patterns of eighteenth-century taste and political attitudes in England.
Canaletto’s views were sold at auction by Sir Robert’s grandson, George Walpole, in 1751. In the manuscript copy of the sale held in the National Art Library at the Victoria & Albert Museum, The Return of the Bucintoro on Ascension Day appears as lot 65: ‘Ditto [Cannaletti]. The Marriage of the Sea by the Doge, its Companion’, where it sold for £34-13 to ‘Raymond for Gideon’. Mr Raymond may be identifiable with Jones Raymond (1706–1769), a Director of the East Indies Company who was an amateur engraver and collector. From 1739 Raymond was a client of Arthur Pond, from whom he purchased prints and Old Master pictures, including a landscape by Rembrandt and a view of the Campo Vaccino by Gian Paolo Panini (in 1745) and a landscape by ‘Rysdale’ (presumably Jacob or Salomon van Ruysdael) in 1748 (see L. Lippincott, ‘Arthur Pond’s Journal of Receipts and Expenses, 1734-1750’, The Walpole Society, 54, 1988, pp. 273, 295). As Lippincott observes, Jones Raymond was ‘one of Pond’s best patrons’ and ‘spent £676 for fifty European paintings at twenty-seven auctions’ (L. Lippincott, Selling Art in Georgian London. The Rise of Arthur Pond, London, 1983, p. 63). He was also the purchaser in 1756 of Francisco de Zurbarán’s Benjamin, from the series of Jacob and his Twelve Sons (the rest of which is at Auckland Castle, Bishop Auckland).
The ‘Gideon’ on whose behalf Raymond purchased the work is Samson Gideon (1699-1762), whose name appears as the first line of provenance in W.G. Constable’s catalogue of Canaletto’s paintings. The son of an eminent West Indian merchant, Samson Gideon was a celebrated Jewish financier who rose to prominence and amassed a great personal fortune in the City of London. Gideon sought to use his great wealth to establish his family among the ranks of Britain’s landed aristocracy and eventually secured a baronetcy for his son, Sampson. In 1751, the same year in which he acquired Canaletto’s two views at auction, he used part of his enormous fortune to acquire Belvedere House in Kent. He added a ‘great room’, in which he assembled his remarkable collection of pictures containing ‘none but pieces which are the originals by the greatest masters, and some of them very capital’ (Dodsley, op. cit., 1761). These included, among others, works such as Peter Paul Rubens’s Gerbier Family (National Gallery of Art, Washington) and Bartolomé Esteban Murillo's Immaculate Conception (National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne), as well as important Dutch old masters. Canaletto’s paintings passed by descent to his son, Sampson, and at the latter’s death to his only surviving heir, his daughter Maria, who was painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds at Sampson Gideon’s instigation (fig. 8).
The Return of the Bucintoro on Ascension Day is remarkable for having remained in private hands for nearly 200 years, passing through family descent from 1751 to 1930. It was purchased by Agnew’s in that year (together with its pendant) and sold ten years later to Giuseppe Bellesi, a Florentine art dealer based in London. Bellesi had founded The Italian Art Gallery in 1926, first located in Savile Row, then moved to New Bond Street and latterly to Duke Street. During the Second World War Bellesi returned to live in Italy and on his return to London in 1948 he reopened his gallery at 15 Paddington Green. It seems likely that Bellesi sold the painting to Mario Crespi, in whose collection both Canalettos were published in 1954 (see Moschini, op. cit.). The eldest son of Benigno Crespi, Senator Mario Crespi was an important figure in Italy during the first half of the 20th century. When his father died in 1910, Mario and his two brothers inherited an empire that included the publishing group that controlled the Corriere della Sera. In 1952 he moved with his wife to a palazzo on via Sant’Andrea in Milan where, after a lengthy restoration project, he was to display his impressive collection of 18th-century Venetian paintings.
The Return of the Bucintoro was presumably acquired in Paris in the 1960s by a French collector, together with its pendant of The Grand Canal, looking North-East from Palazzo Balbi to the Rialto Bridge. The two paintings remained together until the present work’s sale at Ader Tajan in 1993 where, appearing at auction for the first time in nearly 250 years, it fetched a record price for an old master painting at auction in France. The exceptional pictorial quality, distinguished provenance and exceptional condition of both pictures ensured that when the pendant was sold in 2005, it made a world record price for the artist at auction; a title it still holds twenty years later.
This highly evocative view of The Return of the Bucintoro on Ascension Day is a supreme example of Canaletto’s early maturity. Painted at the cusp of the 1730s, a decade during which the artist would receive many of his most prestigious commissions, it is testimony to Canaletto’s prodigious talent and exacting technique. The artist’s masterful views, replete with details and unparalleled in atmospheric effects, made him the most successful vedutista of his age and influenced succeeding generations of landscape painters.