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Lot Essay
Luca Carlevarijs was born in Udine, the son of a painter who died when he was a child. The young Carlevarijs moved to Venice in 1679 and there is scant information on his training and work before he reached the age of forty in 1703 when he published Le Fabriche, e Vedute di Venetia. This influential set of 104 etchings of Venetian topographical sites enjoyed enormous success and served as a compositional sourcebook for Venetian view painters of the subsequent three decades.
Carlevarijs first emerged as a painter of views in 1704 and by the end of the first decade of the eighteenth century he had painted the masterpieces now at the Birmingham City Museum and Art Gallery, The Reception of the British Ambassador Charles Montagu, 4th Earl of Manchester and the Staatliche Gemäldegalerie, Dresden, The Reception of the Imperial Ambassador Count Colloredo at the Doge's Palace on 3 April 1726. In the United States there is the impressive pair of canvases at The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, Regatta on the Grand Canal in honor of Frederick IV, King of Denmark; and The Bucintoro Departing from the Bacino di San Marco ; and the set of four views in the Robert Lehman collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York which includes a view of The Molo, looking West; in addition, there is a superlative example of the subject in the Seattle Art Museum.
With works such as these Carlevarijs established in Venice a genre of painting which was to grow with the appetite of the market until it became the pre-eminant genre for which eighteenth-century Venetian painting is known. Carlevarijs was to remain the unrivalled master of Venetian vedutismo until the mid-1720s. By 1728, when progressive paralysis put an end to his career, it was clear to contemporaries that the young Canaletto had emerged as his successor.
Unlike the artists that succeeded him in the production of these popular views -- Canaletto, Bellotto, Marieschi and Francesco Guardi -- the majority of Carlevarijs's commissions focused on the commercial and religious heart of Venice which was concentrated in the Piazza San Marco, the Piazzetta and the Molo. The Molo was a particular favorite subject of the artist and in high demand by his foreign clientele, resulting in numerous variants of this subject between 1703 and 1727. The commerce at this bustling axis in Venice gave Carlevarijs plenty of material with which to fill his views and resulted in a group of figure sketches which is now at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Perspective, light and staffage were adjusted to distinguish each picture and fulfill expectations of individual patrons.
The son of a wealthy Lord Mayor of London, William Bateman (c. 1695-1744) was on his Grand Tour in 1718 visiting Venice for the Carnival in January before moving on to Padua in February and subsequently Rome, where he is recorded in June and August (see J. Ingamells, A Dictionary of British and Irish Travellers in Italy 1701-1800, New Haven and London, 1997, p. 59). Evidently he did not miss the opportunity of acquiring or commissioning souvenirs of his time in Venice from the leading practitioners in the field. In addition to the present painting, Bateman's collection included a very fine pair of views by Carlevarijs -- The Molo and the Riva degli Schiavoni, Venice, looking East; and The Molo and the Piazzetta, looking West (76 x 101 cm.), which were sold at Christie's, London, 3 December 1997, lot 84 for £1,651,500.
The paintings collection was inherited, along with Shobdon Court, Herefordshire, by John, 2nd Viscount Bateman who died without issue in 1802. The estate then passed to his first cousin once removed, William Hanbury (1780-1845) who also inherited his father's estate Kelmarsh Hall, Northamptonshire in 1807, and thence to his son William Bateman-Hanbury who sold Kelmarsh Hall and its contents along with his picture collection at Christie's in 1896.
Carlevarijs first emerged as a painter of views in 1704 and by the end of the first decade of the eighteenth century he had painted the masterpieces now at the Birmingham City Museum and Art Gallery, The Reception of the British Ambassador Charles Montagu, 4th Earl of Manchester and the Staatliche Gemäldegalerie, Dresden, The Reception of the Imperial Ambassador Count Colloredo at the Doge's Palace on 3 April 1726. In the United States there is the impressive pair of canvases at The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, Regatta on the Grand Canal in honor of Frederick IV, King of Denmark; and The Bucintoro Departing from the Bacino di San Marco ; and the set of four views in the Robert Lehman collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York which includes a view of The Molo, looking West; in addition, there is a superlative example of the subject in the Seattle Art Museum.
With works such as these Carlevarijs established in Venice a genre of painting which was to grow with the appetite of the market until it became the pre-eminant genre for which eighteenth-century Venetian painting is known. Carlevarijs was to remain the unrivalled master of Venetian vedutismo until the mid-1720s. By 1728, when progressive paralysis put an end to his career, it was clear to contemporaries that the young Canaletto had emerged as his successor.
Unlike the artists that succeeded him in the production of these popular views -- Canaletto, Bellotto, Marieschi and Francesco Guardi -- the majority of Carlevarijs's commissions focused on the commercial and religious heart of Venice which was concentrated in the Piazza San Marco, the Piazzetta and the Molo. The Molo was a particular favorite subject of the artist and in high demand by his foreign clientele, resulting in numerous variants of this subject between 1703 and 1727. The commerce at this bustling axis in Venice gave Carlevarijs plenty of material with which to fill his views and resulted in a group of figure sketches which is now at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Perspective, light and staffage were adjusted to distinguish each picture and fulfill expectations of individual patrons.
The son of a wealthy Lord Mayor of London, William Bateman (c. 1695-1744) was on his Grand Tour in 1718 visiting Venice for the Carnival in January before moving on to Padua in February and subsequently Rome, where he is recorded in June and August (see J. Ingamells, A Dictionary of British and Irish Travellers in Italy 1701-1800, New Haven and London, 1997, p. 59). Evidently he did not miss the opportunity of acquiring or commissioning souvenirs of his time in Venice from the leading practitioners in the field. In addition to the present painting, Bateman's collection included a very fine pair of views by Carlevarijs -- The Molo and the Riva degli Schiavoni, Venice, looking East; and The Molo and the Piazzetta, looking West (76 x 101 cm.), which were sold at Christie's, London, 3 December 1997, lot 84 for £1,651,500.
The paintings collection was inherited, along with Shobdon Court, Herefordshire, by John, 2nd Viscount Bateman who died without issue in 1802. The estate then passed to his first cousin once removed, William Hanbury (1780-1845) who also inherited his father's estate Kelmarsh Hall, Northamptonshire in 1807, and thence to his son William Bateman-Hanbury who sold Kelmarsh Hall and its contents along with his picture collection at Christie's in 1896.