The Molo, Venice, from the Bacino di S. Marco, with the fusta, barges and gondolas; and S. Maria della Salute, Venice, from the Rio di S. Moisé, with barges and gondolas on the Grand Canal

Hitherto unpublished but long considered to be the work of Michele Marieschi, these pictures have been identified by Dr. Dario Succi (private communication) as the work of his only known pupil, Francesco Albotto. Albotto not only was the most talented imitator of Marieschi's style but also inherited his widow, whom he married the year after his master's untimely death in 1743 at the age of thirty-two, and thus presumably also his studio effects. The couple were, however, to be almost as short-lived as Marieschi, both dying at the age of thirty-five. Albotto was only a name in the records of the Fraglia and in Mariette's Abecedario (which records that 'Il se fit nommer "il secondo Marieschi"') until 17 May 1972, when a picture apparently originally signed on the back was sold at Sotheby's, New York, as 'Follower of Michele Marieschi'. It was immediately published by Rodolfo Pallucchini (Francesco Albotto: erede di Michele Marieschi, Arte Veneta, XXVI, 1972, pp. 222-3, figs. 302-3) and since then a stylistically consistent oeuvre composed of pictures previously attributed to Marieschi or his school has been established (see D. Succi in the catalogue of the exhibition Marieschi, tra Canaletto e Guardi, Castello di Gorizia, 30 June-15 Oct. 1989,
pp. 165-197; M. Manzelli, Michele Marieschi e il suo alter-ego Francesco Albotto, Venice, 1991; and R. Toledano, Michele Marieschi, catalogo ragionato, 2nd ed., Milan, 1995, pp. 26-31).

Several versions of each of the present views are known. The view of the Molo is, indeed, a variant (of identical size) of the painting sold in New York in 1972 on which all attributions depend, and a version with almost identical boats and figures was sold in these Rooms, 8 July 1988, lot 102 (Succi, op. cit., p. 183, fig. 218). A version of the Salute view with almost identical boats and figures is in the collection of the Duke of Buccleuch (ibid., fig. 231).