THE PROPERTY OF A GENTLEMAN
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Details
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Provenance
Mrs. John Innes Kane, 1926
The Cooper Union Museum, New York; Sotheby's, 26 March 1969, lot 22 (#12,000 to Marshall)
with Colnaghi, London (Paintings by Old Masters, 21 May - 22 June 1974, no.3 and pl.III)
Anon. Sale, Sotheby's, 16 July 1980, lot 130 (#38,000)
Literature
R. Pallucchini, Due Vedute del Carlevarijs in Studi di Storia dell' Arte in onore di Vittorio Viale, 1967, pp.52-6 and fig.3
A. Rizzi, Luca Carlevarijs, 1967, pp.63 and 92 and pl.154
R. Pallucchini, Schede Venete Settecentesche, Arte Veneta,
XXV, 1971, pp.163-4
E. Martini, La Pittura del Settecento Veneto, 1982, p.489, note 116 M. Magnifico in the catalogue of the exhibition, Vedute italiane del '700 in collezioni private italiane, Museo Diocesano d'Arte Sacra, Sant'Apollonia, Venice, 19 Sept. - 8 Nov. 1987, p.35, under no.18
Exhibited
Sarasota, The Italian Comedy, 1951
Toronto, Art Gallery, 17 Oct. - 15 Nov. 1964, Ottawa, National Gallery of Canada, 4 Dec. 1964 - 10 Jan. 1965, and Montreal, Museum of Fine Arts, 29 Jan. - Feb. 1965, Canaletto, p.156, no.130, illustrated
Pfäffikon, Seedamm-Kulturzentrum, 18 June - 27 Aug. 1978, and Geneva, Musée d'art et d'histoire, 13 Sept. - 5 Nov., Art Vénitien en Suisse et au Liechtenstein, pp.178-9, no.159, illustrated

Lot Essay

Rizzi, op. cit., p.63, considers the present picture and its pendant, the following lot, as 'tra le prime e più importanti' of a group of paintings datable to the mid 1720s. The group is characterized by elongated and curving figures which 'assumono un andamento più sofisticato e rocaille' and Rizzi suggests the intervention of a collaborator, possibly the artist's daughter Marianna, born in 1703 (recorded by Temanza in 1738 as a portraitist and a pupil of Rosalba Carriera). This view is challenged by Pallucchini, loc. cit., 1971, who writes 'Non mi pare necessario ricerare i possibili collaboratori del Carlevarijs, se prima non siamo sicuri che l'apparato macchiettistico delle sue scene non gli appartenga'. He sees in these figures 'caratterizzate da una formulazione più mossa e leggera ad un tempo, e da una realizzazione pittorica più accesa e luminosa', the only major stylistic development of Carlevarijs's late work, and suggests that he may have adopted their 'cicaleccio cromatico' in response to the challenge of the young Canaletto. Martini also stresses the importance of the figures, illustrating a detail of those in the pendant rather than the whole picture (op. cit., fig.87) in his opinion they 'possiedono una cosí grande aderenza al vero da diventare quasi la parte piú importante del dipinto; un'aderanza al vero umana, che manca nelle figure del Canaletto e del Guardi ... (idem, p.489, note 114).

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