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Lot Essay
It was common practice in the studios of both Francesco Guardi and his elder brother, Gianantonio, to borrow compositions from other artists. Francesco, for instance, enthusiastically copied from the etchings of his near-contemporary Michele Giovanni Marieschi, such the Grand Canal with the Palazzo Pesaro (London, National Gallery), as well as from works by Canaletto, frequently transforming them into something altogether more capricious, less stable, and more fragmentary in their refraction of light.
On occasion, Guardi also appropriated Northern designs, examples of which he may have had occasion to study in the celebrated collection of Marshal Johann Matthias Reichsgraf von der Schulenburg (1661-1747) at Palazzo Loredan. His brother, Gianantonio, is documented as having received a monthly salary from Schulenberg between 1730 and 1736, for whom he produced portraits of foreign royals and aristocrats, as well as copies of masterpieces by earlier Venetian artists. Antonio Morassi recorded at least six examples of Francesco’s reworking of Northern designs: a late Dutch landscape in a Venetian private collection, which is loosely based on Adriaen van de Velde’s The beach at Scheveningen, in the Staatliche Museen, Kassel (see A. Morassi, Guardi, Venice, I, no. 690; II, fig. 647); its pendant in the same Venetian collection, which draws inspiration from the engraving by J. Aliamet after van de Velde’s Golfers on the Ice near Haarlem, in the National Gallery, London (op. cit., I, no. 691; II, fig. 648); a painting of a fire in a castle by the sea in the Moizzi collection, Milan, seemingly inspired by Dutch works similar to Jacob de Wet’s Troy burning in the Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig (op. cit., I, no. 692; II, fig. 651); and a pair of late works by Guardi in private collections in Bergamo and Florence respectively, which show a hunting party and a deer hunt and are almost certainly drawn from a Dutch 17th-century example (op. cit., I, nos. 688-689; II, figs. 649-650).
The present Mountainous river landscape with boaters, fishermen and a fortune teller is based on the composition by Joos de Momper and David Teniers II, today in the Kunsthaus, Zurich (fig. 1). A mountainous river landscape with a hunting party appears to depend on an as yet unidentified prototype from the circle of Philips Wouwerman and Nicolaes Berchem.
We are grateful to Charles Beddington for endorsing the attribution following first-hand inspection of the paintings.
On occasion, Guardi also appropriated Northern designs, examples of which he may have had occasion to study in the celebrated collection of Marshal Johann Matthias Reichsgraf von der Schulenburg (1661-1747) at Palazzo Loredan. His brother, Gianantonio, is documented as having received a monthly salary from Schulenberg between 1730 and 1736, for whom he produced portraits of foreign royals and aristocrats, as well as copies of masterpieces by earlier Venetian artists. Antonio Morassi recorded at least six examples of Francesco’s reworking of Northern designs: a late Dutch landscape in a Venetian private collection, which is loosely based on Adriaen van de Velde’s The beach at Scheveningen, in the Staatliche Museen, Kassel (see A. Morassi, Guardi, Venice, I, no. 690; II, fig. 647); its pendant in the same Venetian collection, which draws inspiration from the engraving by J. Aliamet after van de Velde’s Golfers on the Ice near Haarlem, in the National Gallery, London (op. cit., I, no. 691; II, fig. 648); a painting of a fire in a castle by the sea in the Moizzi collection, Milan, seemingly inspired by Dutch works similar to Jacob de Wet’s Troy burning in the Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig (op. cit., I, no. 692; II, fig. 651); and a pair of late works by Guardi in private collections in Bergamo and Florence respectively, which show a hunting party and a deer hunt and are almost certainly drawn from a Dutch 17th-century example (op. cit., I, nos. 688-689; II, figs. 649-650).
The present Mountainous river landscape with boaters, fishermen and a fortune teller is based on the composition by Joos de Momper and David Teniers II, today in the Kunsthaus, Zurich (fig. 1). A mountainous river landscape with a hunting party appears to depend on an as yet unidentified prototype from the circle of Philips Wouwerman and Nicolaes Berchem.
We are grateful to Charles Beddington for endorsing the attribution following first-hand inspection of the paintings.