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Lot Essay
This composition, showing the greatest religious and secular monuments of Venice, was invented and developed by Canaletto in a sequence of views beginning in the 1730s, when the artist was at the height of his creative powers. It became perhaps the most successful and most famous of all his compositions, recording as it does the most 'iconic' aspect of the city, as it is first seen by new arrivals approaching by boat across the lagoon. The view is effectively taken from the water, from a point more or less directly opposite the Campanile, which is seen frontally, and thus shows the key buildings at the heart of Venice in a slightly diagonal perspective. On the left are the five easternmost bays of the Zecca (the Mint), and the sophisticated three-bay south front of Jacopo Sansovino's Libreria (the civic Library), below the Campanile; to the right is the Piazzetta, with the Columns of Saint Theodore and Saint Mark, and beyond the east end of the Piazza di San Marco with the Torre dell'Orologio (the Clock Tower), with the south front of the Basilica di San Marco; the west and south faades of the Doge's Palace are shown, the former in shade; beyond are the Prigioni (the Prisons), designed by Antonio da Ponte, three lesser buildings on the Riva degli Schiavoni, the substantial Palazzo Dandolo (now the Albergo Danieli) and several houses to the east of this.
Given the historical and topographic significance of the buildings shown here, it is not surprising that this composition and variants of it were in considerable demand, and no composition has exerted a longer spell on later artists. Already within Canaletto's lifetime it was being copied by other artists keen to supply the strong demand on the part of Grand Tourists, a practice which continued throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In their catalogue of his oeuvre, W.G. Constable and J.G. Links list ten autograph pictures and five autograph variants of this subject (Canaletto: Giovanni Antonio Canal, 2nd edition, Oxford, 1976, II, nos. 101-9 and 335-9), including those in The Royal Collection, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the Uffizi, the Pinacoteca di Brera in Milan, the Pushkin Museum in Moscow and at Woburn Abbey. The present picture relates most closely to the Uffizi picture; an untraced work of similar dimensions is recorded as in the G. Rothan collection, sold George Petit, Paris, 29-31 May 1890, lot 217. Luigi Pisani is recorded as a painter who also ran a well-known gallery in Florence in the nineteenth century, continuing the tradition of supplying tourists with views of Italian landmarks, as well as selling the works of popular contemporary artists such as Eugen von Blaas, Federico Zandomeneghi, Gaetano de Martini and others.
Given the historical and topographic significance of the buildings shown here, it is not surprising that this composition and variants of it were in considerable demand, and no composition has exerted a longer spell on later artists. Already within Canaletto's lifetime it was being copied by other artists keen to supply the strong demand on the part of Grand Tourists, a practice which continued throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In their catalogue of his oeuvre, W.G. Constable and J.G. Links list ten autograph pictures and five autograph variants of this subject (Canaletto: Giovanni Antonio Canal, 2nd edition, Oxford, 1976, II, nos. 101-9 and 335-9), including those in The Royal Collection, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the Uffizi, the Pinacoteca di Brera in Milan, the Pushkin Museum in Moscow and at Woburn Abbey. The present picture relates most closely to the Uffizi picture; an untraced work of similar dimensions is recorded as in the G. Rothan collection, sold George Petit, Paris, 29-31 May 1890, lot 217. Luigi Pisani is recorded as a painter who also ran a well-known gallery in Florence in the nineteenth century, continuing the tradition of supplying tourists with views of Italian landmarks, as well as selling the works of popular contemporary artists such as Eugen von Blaas, Federico Zandomeneghi, Gaetano de Martini and others.