Venice: the Piazza San Marco looking north from the Piazzetta towards the Torre del'Orologio

Traditionally attributed to Canaletto, as an early work, this canvas is by Richter, whose oeuvre was first reconstructed by Fiocco in 1932. Fiocco seems to have been unaware of the existence of a series of seven engravings after Richter by Bernard Vogel (1683-1737), which were published by I. Reale, 'Gio. Richter, svezzese, scolare di Luca Carlevarijs', in the catalogue of the exhibition 'Luca Carlevarijs e la veduta Veneziana del Settecento', Padua, Palazzo dalla Ragione, 25 September-26 December, 1994, pp. 115-128, figs. 6-8 and 12-15. This sequence comprises two views of the Piazzetta, two of the Piazza San Marco, views of Saint Mark's from the Bacino and from San Giorgio and one of San Michele a Murano. With the exception of the last, the views interlock rather closely, and the viewpoints of two of the companions are included in the Veduta della Piazza di San Marco verso il Campanile (Reale, fig. 8) to which the present picture is related, itself taken from a point roughly in the middle of the Piazzetta. The viewpoint in question had not been chosen by Carlevarijs, whose influence on Richter as a topographical painter was paramount. The print shows five bays of Sansovino's great Libreria on the left and extends to the east end of the Torre del' Orologio. The field of the present picture includes a further bay of the Libreria and a narrow strip to the right of the Torre. A related picture sold at Sotheby's, 10 July 2002, lot 76 (which was paired with a variant of the other Piazza San Marco composition with figure groups closely related to those of the corresponding print) shows two additional bays of the Libreria and extends slightly further to the right. Two variants in private collections, published by Reale (loc. cit., figs. 10 and 11), show nine bays of the Libreria and are extended on the right to show the extremity of the southern façade of Saint Mark's, the first including one pinnacle, the second most of the south west dome. There are close parallels between the groups of figures in the four pictures, and while in many respects the picture sold in July 2002 corresponds most closely with the print, the position of the single figure on the left which appears in this and the other two variants as well as in the print, was omitted from that canvas.