The Entrance to the Grand Canal, Venice, with the Dogana and Santa Maria della Salute

Details

Francesco Guardi (1712-1793)
The Entrance to the Grand Canal, Venice, with the Dogana and Santa Maria della Salute
oil on panel
9½ x 14in. (24 x 35.5cm.)

Provenance

Henry Wellesley, 1st Baron Cowley, by whom acquired while British Ambassador in Madrid (1811-1822) according to the 1885 sale catalogue. His son, Henry Richard Wellesley, 1st Earl Cowley (1804-1884), British Ambassador in Paris 1852-1867; Christie's, 18 July 1885, lot 46 (with a pendant, see note below: 140gns. to Colnaghi).
His daughter Feodorowna Cecilia (d. 1920), wife of Francis, 1st Viscount Bertie of Thame (d. 1919).
Their son, Vere, 2nd and last Viscount Bertie of Thame (d. 1954), Shirburn Lodge, near Watlington, Oxfordshire.
His widow, Nora, Viscountess Bertie of Thame; Christie's, 10 Dec. 1954, lot 58 (3,200gns. to Hallsborough).
with the Hallsborough Gallery, London, 21 March-30 April 1955.
with Agnew's, London.
Anon. Sale, Christie's, 25 March 1977, lot 66.

Literature

B. Nicolson in Current and Forthcoming Exhibitions, The Burlington Magazine, XCVII, no. 625, April 1955, p. 124 'a splendid Guardi panel of the Dogana and S.M. della Salute from the collections of Lord Cowley and Viscountess Bertie of Thame'.
A. Morassi, Guardi. I dipinti, Venice, 1973, I, p. 400, under
no. 479.

Lot Essay

This picture was accompanied until 1954 by a pendant showing the island of San Giorgio Maggiore and the Punta della Giudecca, which was sold separately as lot 57 (2,600gns. to N. Bellesi) and subsequently listed by Morassi as in a private collection in Bergamo (Morassi, op. cit., I, p. 396, no. 455). Morassi's disparate comments about the two pictures, which he does not relate to each other although he describes both as late works, are contradicted by the high quality of the present painting (which he presumably never saw) and by the significantly higher price paid for it at the 1954 sale. Smaller variants also on panel are in the Jack and Belle Linsky Collection in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and the Bissey Collection, Paris (ibid., I, pp. 401-2, nos. 485-6; II, figs. 489-90). A view of the Entrance to the Grand Canal and the Salute from the West on a panel of identical size to the present picture and of similar date was sold in these Rooms, 10 December 1993, lot 66 (£160,000).

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