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Lot Essay
The British diplomat, Consul at Venice, archaeologist, and art collector John Strange described Luca Carlevarijs as ‘the first [artist] of any note who painted views of Venice’ in the catalogue for the sale of his own collection at Christie’s on 10 December 1789. Indeed, Carlevarijs is rightly regarded as the first of the great Venetian vedutisti of the eighteenth century, and his success in securing a sustained clientele for views of Venice in the early decades of the Settecento set the pattern for the careers of Canaletto, Bernardo Bellotto, Michele Marieschi and Francesco Guardi later in the century.
Carlevarijs understood well that the sights most likely to appeal to visitors to the city—his prospective patrons—were those associated with the parade of Venetian life, and the Piazzetta, at the very hub of the city, was one of his key subjects. Here, the Piazzetta is seen from the Bacino, its monumental columns with sculptures of Venice’s patron Saint Tòdaro and the winged lion of Saint Mark anchoring the composition. At right, visitors crowd before a puppet show outside the Gothic colonnade of the Palazzo Ducale. The soaring domes and southern façade of the Basilica di San Marco and the Torre dell’Orologio are visible at the far end of the square.
Carlevarijs painted nearly the same view on several occasions, including a slightly wider panorama with differences in the staffage (Timken Museum of Art, San Diego, inv. no. 1979:004) and a canvas formerly in the Fano collection, Milan, which extends the view even further to include the gondolas in the Bacino (A. Rizzi, 1967, op. cit., figs. 51-53). Two highly similar canvases in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (ibid., figs. 137-138) and a New York private collection (ibid., fig. 139) also utilize the steps to the Bacino to define the space in the foreground. The Los Angeles picture is taken from a viewpoint somewhat to the left, while the New York view from one slightly to the right, so that the Torre dell' Orologio is partly obscured by the column.
Although topographical accuracy was Carlevarijs' primary concern, he recognized the importance of lively and varied figures in conveying the character of Venetian life. He made numerous studies on paper and in oil of individual figures and groups, which provided inspiration for the crowds that populate his paintings. The man holding two baskets at far right is related to a group of unusually highly finished pen-and-ink studies in the Salamon Collection, Milan (fig. 1). That drawing, along with five others, includes identifying inscriptions in Carlevarijs’ hand and depicts the occupations and typical dress of everyday Venetians. These studies may have been conceived for a never-realized set of prints (see I. Reale and D. Succi, Luca Carlevarijs e la veduta del Settecento, exhibition catalogue, Padua, 1994, p. 293).
The first recorded owner of this painting, John Ashburnham (1724-1812), 2nd Earl of Ashburnham, succeeded his father at the age of thirteen in 1737. He made his Grand Tour in 1745 with his tutor, Edward Clarke, and is known to have attended a banquet given there by Lord Holderness, the British ambassador, in February of that year. Charles Beddington has dated this painting to the 1720s, noting that it could have been acquired by Ashburnham during his travels (loc. cit.).
The Ashburnham family accumulated what was, by any standards, a remarkable collection, and the 2nd Earl was a collector on a very considerable scale. For example, he purchased the entire collection of Humphry Morice—which included a Canaletto secured by his uncle, Sir William Morice, on or after a tour of 1729-30—after his death in 1785. Two notebooks, begun respectively in 1760 and 1793, record the development of Ashburnham's collection and establish that he was an active purchaser in the London salerooms from 1754. This painting is listed in the 1760 notebook, which covers purchases between 1754 and 1786, suggesting that the painting was acquired after his return to England in 1746.
Carlevarijs understood well that the sights most likely to appeal to visitors to the city—his prospective patrons—were those associated with the parade of Venetian life, and the Piazzetta, at the very hub of the city, was one of his key subjects. Here, the Piazzetta is seen from the Bacino, its monumental columns with sculptures of Venice’s patron Saint Tòdaro and the winged lion of Saint Mark anchoring the composition. At right, visitors crowd before a puppet show outside the Gothic colonnade of the Palazzo Ducale. The soaring domes and southern façade of the Basilica di San Marco and the Torre dell’Orologio are visible at the far end of the square.
Carlevarijs painted nearly the same view on several occasions, including a slightly wider panorama with differences in the staffage (Timken Museum of Art, San Diego, inv. no. 1979:004) and a canvas formerly in the Fano collection, Milan, which extends the view even further to include the gondolas in the Bacino (A. Rizzi, 1967, op. cit., figs. 51-53). Two highly similar canvases in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (ibid., figs. 137-138) and a New York private collection (ibid., fig. 139) also utilize the steps to the Bacino to define the space in the foreground. The Los Angeles picture is taken from a viewpoint somewhat to the left, while the New York view from one slightly to the right, so that the Torre dell' Orologio is partly obscured by the column.
Although topographical accuracy was Carlevarijs' primary concern, he recognized the importance of lively and varied figures in conveying the character of Venetian life. He made numerous studies on paper and in oil of individual figures and groups, which provided inspiration for the crowds that populate his paintings. The man holding two baskets at far right is related to a group of unusually highly finished pen-and-ink studies in the Salamon Collection, Milan (fig. 1). That drawing, along with five others, includes identifying inscriptions in Carlevarijs’ hand and depicts the occupations and typical dress of everyday Venetians. These studies may have been conceived for a never-realized set of prints (see I. Reale and D. Succi, Luca Carlevarijs e la veduta del Settecento, exhibition catalogue, Padua, 1994, p. 293).
The first recorded owner of this painting, John Ashburnham (1724-1812), 2nd Earl of Ashburnham, succeeded his father at the age of thirteen in 1737. He made his Grand Tour in 1745 with his tutor, Edward Clarke, and is known to have attended a banquet given there by Lord Holderness, the British ambassador, in February of that year. Charles Beddington has dated this painting to the 1720s, noting that it could have been acquired by Ashburnham during his travels (loc. cit.).
The Ashburnham family accumulated what was, by any standards, a remarkable collection, and the 2nd Earl was a collector on a very considerable scale. For example, he purchased the entire collection of Humphry Morice—which included a Canaletto secured by his uncle, Sir William Morice, on or after a tour of 1729-30—after his death in 1785. Two notebooks, begun respectively in 1760 and 1793, record the development of Ashburnham's collection and establish that he was an active purchaser in the London salerooms from 1754. This painting is listed in the 1760 notebook, which covers purchases between 1754 and 1786, suggesting that the painting was acquired after his return to England in 1746.