Lot Essay
When this picture was last seen in public, in these Rooms twenty years ago, its early history was not known. Although it has been inaccessible to scholars since then, it has been extensively discussed in the many publications that have appeared since the birth of Marieschi studies in 1988. As his artistic personality has been defined and his oeuvre drastically pared down to a size appropriate to a painter who died shortly after his thirty-second birthday, Marieschi has been re-established among the great Venetian vedutisti of the eighteenth century. Attention has increasingly been drawn to the present picture as one of his masterpieces and as one of the few large scale canvases he painted during his brief career. Its potential significance was further emphasized by Dario Succi's proposed identification of it (rather than a second version, for which see below) as the picture of this subject executed for Field Marshal Count Johann Matthias von der Schulenburg (1661-1747) and included in the Schulenburg Sale at Christie's in 1775. This can now be confirmed, as the frame is of a type made in London in the 1770s. A frame of identical pattern is on a Luca Giordano Finding of Moses bought at the Schulenburg Sale (2nd day, lot 63) by John, 3rd Duke of Dorset and now in an English private collection. Others are on a group of pictures reframed c. 1772/4 for John, 3rd Earl of Bute for Luton Park, including the Circle of Rubens Christ in the House of Simon the Pharisee and the copy of Veronese's Wisdom and Fortitude sold from the Bute Collection in these Rooms, 9 December 1994, lots 24 and 343; the former was purchased at Christie's in 1772.
Schulenburg was, with Consul Smith, the greatest foreign patron of painters and collector of pictures resident in Venice in the eighteenth century. A professional soldier of Saxon origin who had fought in most of the great European wars of his time, Schulenburg's defence of Corfù against the Turks in 1715 and 1716 had made him a hero to the Venetians, who erected a statue in his honour and granted him a life pension. He decided to retire to Venice and established himself at Palazzo Loredan near San Trovaso. There, in 1724, at the age of sixty-three, he found himself in possession of a group of eighty-eight paintings, mainly from the collections of the Dukes of Mantua, which were ceded to him by a dealer named Giovanni Battista Rota who had defaulted on a loan. This awakened in the Marshal a voracious appetite for collecting and in the remaining two decades of his life he amassed over nine hundred pictures. Ably assisted by his advisors, first Pittoni and then Piazzetta, Schulenburg acquired works by almost all the leading Venetian painters of his day. His purchases accelerated in the 1730s and in 1735 he began to send regular shipments of paintings back to his estates in Germany. A bachelor, he bequeathed the whole of his vast collection to his nephew with the request that it be preserved intact, but about 150 pictures, including many of the finest, were dispersed at Christie's already in 1775.
Schulenburg's activities as a patron and collector are particularly well documented by papers now in the Niedersächsisches Staatsarchiv at Hannover. Thus the identification of the present picture as from his collection makes it one of the most fully documented of all Venetian vedute. The records establish it as the earlier of only two precisely datable works in Marieschi's oeuvre, a much-needed starting point for an understanding of his development. Indeed, since the other datable painting was also executed for Schulenburg (see below), they provide us with almost everything we know about Marieschi's patrons, the dating of his works and the prices he was able to charge.
The documents reveal that Schulenburg paid Marieschi the substantial sum of fifty zecchini for the present painting on 20 November 1736. Evidently pleased with his acquisition, the Marshal subsequently went on to acquire no fewer than eleven more works by the artist. Of those the only one of comparable importance to the present work is the 'veduta di Rialto' paid for on 20 April 1737 and recorded in the inventory dated 30 May 1738 hanging as the pendant to the present picture (see under literature above). It had already been transported to Germany, however, the month before the completion of the inventory. Also included in the 1775 sale, Toledano (op. cit., 1988, p. 82, no. V.11, illustrated) was the first to suggest its identification with a picture in the collection of the National Trust, then at Claydon House and recently moved to Osterley Park, which, long attributed to Canaletto, had been restored to Marieschi by St. John Gore (in the catalogue of the exhibition Souvenirs of the Grand Tour, Wildenstein, London, 20 Oct.-1Dec. 1982, p. 27, no. 33, fig. 31). The identification is supported by Dario Succi (op. cit., 1989, pp. 91-2, fig. 89; see also D. Succi, L'ingresso del patriarca Correr documentato da Marieschi, in the catalogue of the exhibition Luca Carlevarijs e la veduta veneziana del Settecento, Palazzo della Ragione, Padua, 25 Sept.-26 Dec. 1994, pp. 74-8, fig. 12).
The present picture remained at Palazzo Loredan, where at the time of the Marshal's death it was hanging in the entrance hall as the pendant to one of Canaletto's greatest masterpieces, The Riva degli Schiavoni, looking West from S. Biagio, now in Sir John Soane's Museum, London, for which the artist had received a considerable, though not quite final, payment on 23 February 1736. The two paintings must have arrived at Palazzo Loredan at almost the same time, and this is the only documented occasion on which Marieschi found himself in more or less direct competition with Canaletto. Although relative cost may have had something to do with it, Schulenburg never acquired another work by Canaletto and Marieschi instantly became his favoured painter of views and capricci.
This view of the courtyard of the Doge's Palace is a subject which Marieschi made very much his own. It had been treated in engravings by Luca Carlevarijs, in his Fabriche e vedute di Venetia... published in 1703, and by Domenico Lovisa, in his Gran Teatro di Venezia... published in 1720 (see A. Corboz, Canaletto. Una Venezia immaginaria, Milan, 1985, I, p. 227, figs. 278-9), but no earlier paintings of it are known. It is one of the few significant Venetian views which did not become part of the standard repertoire of Canaletto, who only executed one small picture of it late in his career (ibid., pp. 225-6, figs. 276-7). Marieschi not only made an engraving of the view from a slightly different viewpoint, published in his Magnificentiores Selectioresque Urbis Venetiarum Prospectus (ibid., p. 227, fig. 280; illustrated in all the standard literature on Marieschi), but also painted a second version of the present picture owned by the National Trust and recently moved from Hatchlands to hang with the Schulenburg Rialto at Osterley Park (see, for instance, Toledano, op. cit., 1995, p. 56, no. V.4.a, illustrated). The present painting would, indeed, seem to be the only one of the few large scale works the artist produced during his brief career which he considered worthy of repetition.
A large picture of the same view in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., recently identified by Dario Succi as by Antonio Joli and as showing the arrival of the Papal Ambassador Francesco Stopani in 1741, was clearly inspired by one of Marieschi's depictions of the view (D. Succi, Antonio Joli e Gaspare Diziani per l'ingresso del Nunzio Apostolico Stopani nel 1741, in op. cit., 1994, pp. 81-5). Joli would almost certainly have known the present picture as he himself had worked for Schulenburg in 1735-6.
Schulenburg was, with Consul Smith, the greatest foreign patron of painters and collector of pictures resident in Venice in the eighteenth century. A professional soldier of Saxon origin who had fought in most of the great European wars of his time, Schulenburg's defence of Corfù against the Turks in 1715 and 1716 had made him a hero to the Venetians, who erected a statue in his honour and granted him a life pension. He decided to retire to Venice and established himself at Palazzo Loredan near San Trovaso. There, in 1724, at the age of sixty-three, he found himself in possession of a group of eighty-eight paintings, mainly from the collections of the Dukes of Mantua, which were ceded to him by a dealer named Giovanni Battista Rota who had defaulted on a loan. This awakened in the Marshal a voracious appetite for collecting and in the remaining two decades of his life he amassed over nine hundred pictures. Ably assisted by his advisors, first Pittoni and then Piazzetta, Schulenburg acquired works by almost all the leading Venetian painters of his day. His purchases accelerated in the 1730s and in 1735 he began to send regular shipments of paintings back to his estates in Germany. A bachelor, he bequeathed the whole of his vast collection to his nephew with the request that it be preserved intact, but about 150 pictures, including many of the finest, were dispersed at Christie's already in 1775.
Schulenburg's activities as a patron and collector are particularly well documented by papers now in the Niedersächsisches Staatsarchiv at Hannover. Thus the identification of the present picture as from his collection makes it one of the most fully documented of all Venetian vedute. The records establish it as the earlier of only two precisely datable works in Marieschi's oeuvre, a much-needed starting point for an understanding of his development. Indeed, since the other datable painting was also executed for Schulenburg (see below), they provide us with almost everything we know about Marieschi's patrons, the dating of his works and the prices he was able to charge.
The documents reveal that Schulenburg paid Marieschi the substantial sum of fifty zecchini for the present painting on 20 November 1736. Evidently pleased with his acquisition, the Marshal subsequently went on to acquire no fewer than eleven more works by the artist. Of those the only one of comparable importance to the present work is the 'veduta di Rialto' paid for on 20 April 1737 and recorded in the inventory dated 30 May 1738 hanging as the pendant to the present picture (see under literature above). It had already been transported to Germany, however, the month before the completion of the inventory. Also included in the 1775 sale, Toledano (op. cit., 1988, p. 82, no. V.11, illustrated) was the first to suggest its identification with a picture in the collection of the National Trust, then at Claydon House and recently moved to Osterley Park, which, long attributed to Canaletto, had been restored to Marieschi by St. John Gore (in the catalogue of the exhibition Souvenirs of the Grand Tour, Wildenstein, London, 20 Oct.-1Dec. 1982, p. 27, no. 33, fig. 31). The identification is supported by Dario Succi (op. cit., 1989, pp. 91-2, fig. 89; see also D. Succi, L'ingresso del patriarca Correr documentato da Marieschi, in the catalogue of the exhibition Luca Carlevarijs e la veduta veneziana del Settecento, Palazzo della Ragione, Padua, 25 Sept.-26 Dec. 1994, pp. 74-8, fig. 12).
The present picture remained at Palazzo Loredan, where at the time of the Marshal's death it was hanging in the entrance hall as the pendant to one of Canaletto's greatest masterpieces, The Riva degli Schiavoni, looking West from S. Biagio, now in Sir John Soane's Museum, London, for which the artist had received a considerable, though not quite final, payment on 23 February 1736. The two paintings must have arrived at Palazzo Loredan at almost the same time, and this is the only documented occasion on which Marieschi found himself in more or less direct competition with Canaletto. Although relative cost may have had something to do with it, Schulenburg never acquired another work by Canaletto and Marieschi instantly became his favoured painter of views and capricci.
This view of the courtyard of the Doge's Palace is a subject which Marieschi made very much his own. It had been treated in engravings by Luca Carlevarijs, in his Fabriche e vedute di Venetia... published in 1703, and by Domenico Lovisa, in his Gran Teatro di Venezia... published in 1720 (see A. Corboz, Canaletto. Una Venezia immaginaria, Milan, 1985, I, p. 227, figs. 278-9), but no earlier paintings of it are known. It is one of the few significant Venetian views which did not become part of the standard repertoire of Canaletto, who only executed one small picture of it late in his career (ibid., pp. 225-6, figs. 276-7). Marieschi not only made an engraving of the view from a slightly different viewpoint, published in his Magnificentiores Selectioresque Urbis Venetiarum Prospectus (ibid., p. 227, fig. 280; illustrated in all the standard literature on Marieschi), but also painted a second version of the present picture owned by the National Trust and recently moved from Hatchlands to hang with the Schulenburg Rialto at Osterley Park (see, for instance, Toledano, op. cit., 1995, p. 56, no. V.4.a, illustrated). The present painting would, indeed, seem to be the only one of the few large scale works the artist produced during his brief career which he considered worthy of repetition.
A large picture of the same view in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., recently identified by Dario Succi as by Antonio Joli and as showing the arrival of the Papal Ambassador Francesco Stopani in 1741, was clearly inspired by one of Marieschi's depictions of the view (D. Succi, Antonio Joli e Gaspare Diziani per l'ingresso del Nunzio Apostolico Stopani nel 1741, in op. cit., 1994, pp. 81-5). Joli would almost certainly have known the present picture as he himself had worked for Schulenburg in 1735-6.