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拍品專文
This impeccably preserved panel is one of the most spirited of all pictures of the type by Guardi, and of importance to the scholar as one of the few that can be reliably dated -- for as Morassi (I, p. 275) notes, the inscription on the reverse (fig. 1) is clearly contemporary and the date, 1780, 'corrisponde esattamente' with that of the style of both this and the companion, lot 19. Certainly the composition is close in type to the very slightly larger (20.3 x 14.2 cm.) Archway to a courtyard in the Sutherland collection (Morassi, no. 804), which bears an old inscription also on the reverse, 'Del Guardi di Venezia, 1778'.
Of the present design, Morassi commented: 'Opera squisita sia per l'originalità d'invenzione sia per la brillante fattura.' Even among Guardi's other capricci on this scale the picture is exceptional, both for its implied descent toward the further gateway and the dazzling modish couple in what is clearly masquerade costume, for his face has been blackened, seen from the back. In the larger (40 x 29.5 cm.) variant, once in the Fauchier-Magnan collection, Paris, and most recently sold in Christie's London, 10 December 2003, lot 53 (Morassi, 1975, no. 256, fig. 691), the man is shown in a characteristic Venetian cloak and the lady's costume is somewhat less voluminous, while the statue is seen face on rather than from the side: the dog silhouetted so sharply against the shadow of the arch was omitted.
Unlike his views, which were from the outset collected by foreign visitors, Guardi's capricci seem to have been intended for a domestic Venetian audience. The numbers 18 and 19 on this and its pendant are no doubt those of a Venetian quadreria. The insistence on the artist's Venetian status was characteristic of the age, and is paralleled for example in the inscriptions on drawings owned by the closely contemporary so-called Reliable Venetian Collector (see A. Bettagno, Disegni di una Collezione Veneziana del Settecento, exhibition catalogue, Venice, 1966).
Of the present design, Morassi commented: 'Opera squisita sia per l'originalità d'invenzione sia per la brillante fattura.' Even among Guardi's other capricci on this scale the picture is exceptional, both for its implied descent toward the further gateway and the dazzling modish couple in what is clearly masquerade costume, for his face has been blackened, seen from the back. In the larger (40 x 29.5 cm.) variant, once in the Fauchier-Magnan collection, Paris, and most recently sold in Christie's London, 10 December 2003, lot 53 (Morassi, 1975, no. 256, fig. 691), the man is shown in a characteristic Venetian cloak and the lady's costume is somewhat less voluminous, while the statue is seen face on rather than from the side: the dog silhouetted so sharply against the shadow of the arch was omitted.
Unlike his views, which were from the outset collected by foreign visitors, Guardi's capricci seem to have been intended for a domestic Venetian audience. The numbers 18 and 19 on this and its pendant are no doubt those of a Venetian quadreria. The insistence on the artist's Venetian status was characteristic of the age, and is paralleled for example in the inscriptions on drawings owned by the closely contemporary so-called Reliable Venetian Collector (see A. Bettagno, Disegni di una Collezione Veneziana del Settecento, exhibition catalogue, Venice, 1966).