Venice, a view of the Piazza San Marco looking East towards the Basilica di San Marco and the Campanile

This view of Piazza San Marco, the most famous site in Venice, with the Basilica di San Marco, the Campanile and Doge's Palace in the background, the New Procuratie at right, the Old Procuratie and clock tower at left, was recognized by Dario Succi as an 'impressive' painting by Apollonio Domenichini, datable to around 1740 (written correspondence with the previous owner, 30 September 1996). Succi was the first to suggest that Domenichini, who enrolled in the Fraglia de' Pittori in 1757, should be identified with the formerly anonymous artist known as the Master of the Langmatt Foundation, a theory that has now gained general acceptance within the scholarly community. Succi discovered Domenichini's name in correspondence between the Venetian art dealer Giovanni Maria Sasso and the English minister, Sir John Strange (D. Succi, 'Apollonio Domenichini: il Maestro della Fondazione Langmatt', in Da Canaletto a Zuccarelli, exhibition catalogue, Udine, 2003, pp. 103-7). His eponymous works in the Langmatt Foundation, Baden, comprise a set of nine pictures (each approximately 46 x 73 cm.) and a set of four smaller views (approximately 25 x 38 cm; see the exhibition catalogue, Mythos Venedig, Baden, June-October 1994, pp. 62-117). Working in the 1740s and '50s, as can be deduced from topographical details in his paintings, Domenichini no doubt benefited from Canaletto's English sojourn, and his vedute proved extremely popular with Grand Tourists. His pictures are distinguished by their cool palette and slight distortion of perspective, which heightens the grandeur of his compositions.