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Lot Essay
"[A]s an architect in paint, Sargent preserved his own version of the stones of Venice.” -Donna Seldin Janis
Painted in 1913, Corner of the Church of San Stae, Venice is one of only fifteen finished oil paintings Sargent created during his period of intense engagement with the city from the fin-de-siecle to the beginning of the First World War. Recognized as a masterwork in the artist’s own lifetime, the present work was notably purchased by eminent American collector Henry Clay Frick in 1916, who was seeking “a very good Sargent, something really good.” (H. C. Frick, quoted in R. Ormond and E. Kilmurray, John Singer Sargent: Venetian Figures and Landscapes, 1898-1913, Complete Paintings, Volume VI, New Haven, 2009, p. 215). A masterful evocation of Venice’s unique luminance, the present work demonstrates how for Sargent, “the Venetian canals were suspended in time and were his magical refuge, his home” (W. Adelson, “In the Modernist Camp,” in Sargent Abroad: Figures and landscapes, eds. M. Christian and N. Grubb, New York, 1997, pp. 33-35). Venice became his personal muse, and the works Sargent created there were for his own satisfaction, engaging his love for the Renaissance and Baroque. Delighting in the architectural details of the eternally captivating city with a unique perspective in the light of a quiet early morning, Corner of the Church of San Stae, Venice attests to Sargent’s position amongst the most renowned artists to capture the unique beauty of the City of Water.
“...a very good Sargent, something really good...” -Henry Clay Frick when acquiring the present work in 1916
Venice held immense significance for Sargent, and the lagoon functioned as his most inspiring muse. His first experience of the floating city was as a teenager, when his mother took him to see the masterpieces in the Gallerie dell’Accademia. His lasting artistic engagement with the city blossomed during two extended stays from 1880-1882, initiating a forty-year romance with Venice. Sargent developed a profound understanding of the city and its atmosphere, capturing its unique light described by his friend, the American writer Henry James, as that “strange gaiety of light and color... made up of the reflection of superannuated things” (H. James, “The Grand Canal,” in Italian Hours, New York, 1909⁄1992, p. 35). The artist always rendered the city from an outside perspective, painting almost exclusively from the stern of a gondola—lent by the Curtis family, his hosts at Palazzo Barbaro. Over his years visiting Venice, Sargent produced around 150 watercolors depicting boats and architectural fragments, along with just a small number of oils. Sargent only completed fifteen Venetian oil paintings between 1898 and 1913, including the present work and examples in the Philadelphia Museum of Art; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, England; Fogg Museum, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, Massachusetts; and the Johannesburg Art Gallery, South Africa.
“[T]he architecture of Venice becomes the medium of dynamic pictorial construction: of shifting surface patterns, disorienting angles, slicing diagonals, and receding perspectives.” -Richard Ormond
Corner of the Church of San Stae, Venice captures Sargent’s obsessive and distinctive image of Venice, presenting the city’s history in snatches and fragments, where “the architecture of Venice becomes the medium of dynamic pictorial construction: of shifting surface patterns, disorienting angles, slicing diagonals, and receding perspectives,” notes Sargent expert Richard Ormond (R. Ormond, “Down the Grand Canal 1900-1913,” in Sargent’s Venice, op. cit., p. 72 ). Sargent’s fragmentary subject expresses the city’s almost mystical aura more profoundly than any panorama, excising suggestions of modernity in order to establish a dialogue directly with Venice’s storied past. Donna Seldin Janis summates how “for Sargent, Venice existed in the present and in the past, both in reality and in his imagination... Venice was Sargent’s muse, and both were anachronistic” (D. S. Janis, in “Venice,” in Sargent Abroad: Figures and Landscapes, eds. M. Christian and N. Grubb, New York, 1997, p. 214).
San Stae looks outward from Fondamenta Giovanelli to face the southern bank of the Grand Canal, approximately equidistant from the Ponte degli Scalzi and the Ponte di Rialto. The church’s position in the upper part of the Grand Canal makes it an atypical subject for Sargent, who produced the majority of his works south of the Rialto. The subject here, presented in such a close-up detail as to obfuscate the site’s identity, bears little of the grandeur of Sargent’s other subjects, most notably the Salute and the buildings around Piazza San Marco, which Sargent depicted in dozens of watercolors and oils. The artist was captivated with this obscure church, however, investigating it in an unfinished watercolor which is most likely a study for the present work, as well as in another oil painting, The Church of San Stae (Private Collection). While less known than many of Venice’s other landmarks, San Stae was painted as well by none other than Canaletto in his The Grand Canal, Venice, Looking South-East from San Stae to the Fabbriche Nuove di Rialto (formerly in the Collection of Paul G. Allen), where it appears next to the Scoletta on the far right of the composition illuminated with an even light. Sargent’s version contrasts powerfully with Canaletto’s serene, picturesque vision, offering an unvarnished, modern perspective presenting the city as it truly appeared.
Corner of the Church of San Stae, Venice satisfies Sargent’s irresistible passion for architectural detail, vividly illustrating the Palladian-inspired high Baroque façade designed by the architect Domenico Rossi in 1709. In the present work, bright, early morning sunlight cascades down the elaborate baroque façade to alight upon the steps of Fondamenta Giovanelli and across the slack white sails of a bobbing barge. While appearing spontaneous, the present work emerged out of his watercolor study of the subject, the artist carefully choosing the precise angle from which to paint. Articulating the monumental form of San Stae looming up as if a precipice, its engulfing columns and pilasters thrusting skywards to dominate the pictorial space, Sargent captures the fugitive effects of a singular moment, immortalizing a passing instant for eternity. Depicting the intricate architectural decorations of the church from an unconventional perspective, Sargent composes his oil in a searingly modern style, cropping the church to detail the left third of the façade. As a result, Sargent’s oil “evoke[s] an earlier Venice of architectural magnificence amid quiet, watery mystery” (D. S. Janis, “Venice,” in op. cit., p. 209).
Sargent occupies the foreground with a moored raft, establishing a sense of dynamic movement across the composition as he elegantly nods to the motion of his own just out-of-frame gondola from which he paints. This dynamism establishes a strong juxtaposition against the solidity of the landbound buildings, anchored by the powerful Corinthian column grounding the church’s left corner. The billowing folds of the white cloth spilling over the barge’s gunwale parallel the shapes formed by the light and shadow playing across the church’s sunlit façade. Sargent’s singular eye alights towards the mundane, scrupulously devoting attention to the column’s capitals, entablature, and pilasters, while simultaneously summarizing the sculpture of Saint Oswald ensconced within a niche and the upper relief of Saint Eustace spared from beasts with a few exceptional strokes and washes. To the left, the eighteenth-century Scoletta dell'arte dei battioro e tiraoro, the red-painted headquarters of the goldworkers’ guild, appears dwarfed by San Stae, its spartan exterior appearing delicate against the Baroque exuberance next door. Sargent also permits a small triangle of sky to piece through his otherwise architectural composition, the vivid ultramarine adding a shot of radiant color against the otherwise shadowy painting.
“For Sargent, Venice existed in the present and in the past, both in reality and in his imagination… Venice was Sargent’s muse, and both were anachronistic.” -Donna Seldin Janis
Sargent’s fascination with Venice followed a revered artistic tradition, established by Titian, Veronese, and Tintoretto and revivified by the touristic vendute exceptionally painted by Canaletto and Giovanni Antonio Guardi. This romanticizing tradition was rediscovered in the nineteenth century by Lord Byron and John Ruskin, whose eulogies to the city’s Gothic aesthetic kindled an aesthetic shift away from artistic interest in Rome and Florence to focus on the lagoon. Painters including J.M.W. Turner and James McNeill Whistler were greatly inspired, creating iconic paintings of the serene city. Sargent, however, was much closer in temperament to Venice than his predecessors and contemporaries, his vast knowledge of and experience in the lagoon allowing him to capture it in glorious authenticity. As exemplified by Corner of the Church of San Stae, Venice, Sargent studiously avoided the perils of cliché and pastiche, developing a novel aesthetic which compliments that of Venetian photographers including Carlo Naya and Tomaso Filippi.
Sargent’s singular version of Venice, carefully attuned to the specificity of time and light, parallels Claude Monet’s contemporaneous paintings of the city. Monet’s ravishing series from 1908, including works such as Palazzo da Mula, Venice (National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.), portray the same exceptional light which Sargent articulates in Corner of the Church of San Stae, Venice. Unique to Sargent’s painting, however, is the inclusion of Venice’s water effects without needing to actually paint the water; Sargent masterfully implies the wavy motion and glittery illumination created by the canal with carefully included highlights in his foregrounded barges, allowing him to devote the rest of the painting to a more detailed rendition of his favored architectural decoration.
Corner of the Church of San Stae, Venice is an exceptionally rare example of an oil painting of Venice produced by Sargent after 1900, when Sargent largely devoted himself to watercolor. The work’s technical brilliance and incredible level of refinement showcase Sargent’s mature mastery over his medium. After witnessing the incredible demand for his watercolors of Venice in sales to the Brooklyn Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Sargent began placing a couple of oil paintings, including the present work, with Knoedler Gallery for sale for then-incredible sums between £200 and £600. This work was notably purchased from Knoedler by Henry Clay Frick and gifted by him to his friend Mr. Lewis Cass Ledyard, remaining in that family’s collection until 1980. The painting has been prodigiously exhibited at some of the most significant exhibitions devoted to Sargent, demonstrating the profound significance which Corner of the Church of San Stae, Venice holds within the artist’s broader oeuvre. Revealing his innermost interests and passions, the present work visualizes how “as an architect in paint, Sargent preserved his own version of the stones of Venice” (D. S. Janis, “Venice,” op. cit., p. 214).
Painted in 1913, Corner of the Church of San Stae, Venice is one of only fifteen finished oil paintings Sargent created during his period of intense engagement with the city from the fin-de-siecle to the beginning of the First World War. Recognized as a masterwork in the artist’s own lifetime, the present work was notably purchased by eminent American collector Henry Clay Frick in 1916, who was seeking “a very good Sargent, something really good.” (H. C. Frick, quoted in R. Ormond and E. Kilmurray, John Singer Sargent: Venetian Figures and Landscapes, 1898-1913, Complete Paintings, Volume VI, New Haven, 2009, p. 215). A masterful evocation of Venice’s unique luminance, the present work demonstrates how for Sargent, “the Venetian canals were suspended in time and were his magical refuge, his home” (W. Adelson, “In the Modernist Camp,” in Sargent Abroad: Figures and landscapes, eds. M. Christian and N. Grubb, New York, 1997, pp. 33-35). Venice became his personal muse, and the works Sargent created there were for his own satisfaction, engaging his love for the Renaissance and Baroque. Delighting in the architectural details of the eternally captivating city with a unique perspective in the light of a quiet early morning, Corner of the Church of San Stae, Venice attests to Sargent’s position amongst the most renowned artists to capture the unique beauty of the City of Water.
“...a very good Sargent, something really good...” -Henry Clay Frick when acquiring the present work in 1916
Venice held immense significance for Sargent, and the lagoon functioned as his most inspiring muse. His first experience of the floating city was as a teenager, when his mother took him to see the masterpieces in the Gallerie dell’Accademia. His lasting artistic engagement with the city blossomed during two extended stays from 1880-1882, initiating a forty-year romance with Venice. Sargent developed a profound understanding of the city and its atmosphere, capturing its unique light described by his friend, the American writer Henry James, as that “strange gaiety of light and color... made up of the reflection of superannuated things” (H. James, “The Grand Canal,” in Italian Hours, New York, 1909⁄1992, p. 35). The artist always rendered the city from an outside perspective, painting almost exclusively from the stern of a gondola—lent by the Curtis family, his hosts at Palazzo Barbaro. Over his years visiting Venice, Sargent produced around 150 watercolors depicting boats and architectural fragments, along with just a small number of oils. Sargent only completed fifteen Venetian oil paintings between 1898 and 1913, including the present work and examples in the Philadelphia Museum of Art; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, England; Fogg Museum, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, Massachusetts; and the Johannesburg Art Gallery, South Africa.
“[T]he architecture of Venice becomes the medium of dynamic pictorial construction: of shifting surface patterns, disorienting angles, slicing diagonals, and receding perspectives.” -Richard Ormond
Corner of the Church of San Stae, Venice captures Sargent’s obsessive and distinctive image of Venice, presenting the city’s history in snatches and fragments, where “the architecture of Venice becomes the medium of dynamic pictorial construction: of shifting surface patterns, disorienting angles, slicing diagonals, and receding perspectives,” notes Sargent expert Richard Ormond (R. Ormond, “Down the Grand Canal 1900-1913,” in Sargent’s Venice, op. cit., p. 72 ). Sargent’s fragmentary subject expresses the city’s almost mystical aura more profoundly than any panorama, excising suggestions of modernity in order to establish a dialogue directly with Venice’s storied past. Donna Seldin Janis summates how “for Sargent, Venice existed in the present and in the past, both in reality and in his imagination... Venice was Sargent’s muse, and both were anachronistic” (D. S. Janis, in “Venice,” in Sargent Abroad: Figures and Landscapes, eds. M. Christian and N. Grubb, New York, 1997, p. 214).
San Stae looks outward from Fondamenta Giovanelli to face the southern bank of the Grand Canal, approximately equidistant from the Ponte degli Scalzi and the Ponte di Rialto. The church’s position in the upper part of the Grand Canal makes it an atypical subject for Sargent, who produced the majority of his works south of the Rialto. The subject here, presented in such a close-up detail as to obfuscate the site’s identity, bears little of the grandeur of Sargent’s other subjects, most notably the Salute and the buildings around Piazza San Marco, which Sargent depicted in dozens of watercolors and oils. The artist was captivated with this obscure church, however, investigating it in an unfinished watercolor which is most likely a study for the present work, as well as in another oil painting, The Church of San Stae (Private Collection). While less known than many of Venice’s other landmarks, San Stae was painted as well by none other than Canaletto in his The Grand Canal, Venice, Looking South-East from San Stae to the Fabbriche Nuove di Rialto (formerly in the Collection of Paul G. Allen), where it appears next to the Scoletta on the far right of the composition illuminated with an even light. Sargent’s version contrasts powerfully with Canaletto’s serene, picturesque vision, offering an unvarnished, modern perspective presenting the city as it truly appeared.
Corner of the Church of San Stae, Venice satisfies Sargent’s irresistible passion for architectural detail, vividly illustrating the Palladian-inspired high Baroque façade designed by the architect Domenico Rossi in 1709. In the present work, bright, early morning sunlight cascades down the elaborate baroque façade to alight upon the steps of Fondamenta Giovanelli and across the slack white sails of a bobbing barge. While appearing spontaneous, the present work emerged out of his watercolor study of the subject, the artist carefully choosing the precise angle from which to paint. Articulating the monumental form of San Stae looming up as if a precipice, its engulfing columns and pilasters thrusting skywards to dominate the pictorial space, Sargent captures the fugitive effects of a singular moment, immortalizing a passing instant for eternity. Depicting the intricate architectural decorations of the church from an unconventional perspective, Sargent composes his oil in a searingly modern style, cropping the church to detail the left third of the façade. As a result, Sargent’s oil “evoke[s] an earlier Venice of architectural magnificence amid quiet, watery mystery” (D. S. Janis, “Venice,” in op. cit., p. 209).
Sargent occupies the foreground with a moored raft, establishing a sense of dynamic movement across the composition as he elegantly nods to the motion of his own just out-of-frame gondola from which he paints. This dynamism establishes a strong juxtaposition against the solidity of the landbound buildings, anchored by the powerful Corinthian column grounding the church’s left corner. The billowing folds of the white cloth spilling over the barge’s gunwale parallel the shapes formed by the light and shadow playing across the church’s sunlit façade. Sargent’s singular eye alights towards the mundane, scrupulously devoting attention to the column’s capitals, entablature, and pilasters, while simultaneously summarizing the sculpture of Saint Oswald ensconced within a niche and the upper relief of Saint Eustace spared from beasts with a few exceptional strokes and washes. To the left, the eighteenth-century Scoletta dell'arte dei battioro e tiraoro, the red-painted headquarters of the goldworkers’ guild, appears dwarfed by San Stae, its spartan exterior appearing delicate against the Baroque exuberance next door. Sargent also permits a small triangle of sky to piece through his otherwise architectural composition, the vivid ultramarine adding a shot of radiant color against the otherwise shadowy painting.
“For Sargent, Venice existed in the present and in the past, both in reality and in his imagination… Venice was Sargent’s muse, and both were anachronistic.” -Donna Seldin Janis
Sargent’s fascination with Venice followed a revered artistic tradition, established by Titian, Veronese, and Tintoretto and revivified by the touristic vendute exceptionally painted by Canaletto and Giovanni Antonio Guardi. This romanticizing tradition was rediscovered in the nineteenth century by Lord Byron and John Ruskin, whose eulogies to the city’s Gothic aesthetic kindled an aesthetic shift away from artistic interest in Rome and Florence to focus on the lagoon. Painters including J.M.W. Turner and James McNeill Whistler were greatly inspired, creating iconic paintings of the serene city. Sargent, however, was much closer in temperament to Venice than his predecessors and contemporaries, his vast knowledge of and experience in the lagoon allowing him to capture it in glorious authenticity. As exemplified by Corner of the Church of San Stae, Venice, Sargent studiously avoided the perils of cliché and pastiche, developing a novel aesthetic which compliments that of Venetian photographers including Carlo Naya and Tomaso Filippi.
Sargent’s singular version of Venice, carefully attuned to the specificity of time and light, parallels Claude Monet’s contemporaneous paintings of the city. Monet’s ravishing series from 1908, including works such as Palazzo da Mula, Venice (National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.), portray the same exceptional light which Sargent articulates in Corner of the Church of San Stae, Venice. Unique to Sargent’s painting, however, is the inclusion of Venice’s water effects without needing to actually paint the water; Sargent masterfully implies the wavy motion and glittery illumination created by the canal with carefully included highlights in his foregrounded barges, allowing him to devote the rest of the painting to a more detailed rendition of his favored architectural decoration.
Corner of the Church of San Stae, Venice is an exceptionally rare example of an oil painting of Venice produced by Sargent after 1900, when Sargent largely devoted himself to watercolor. The work’s technical brilliance and incredible level of refinement showcase Sargent’s mature mastery over his medium. After witnessing the incredible demand for his watercolors of Venice in sales to the Brooklyn Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Sargent began placing a couple of oil paintings, including the present work, with Knoedler Gallery for sale for then-incredible sums between £200 and £600. This work was notably purchased from Knoedler by Henry Clay Frick and gifted by him to his friend Mr. Lewis Cass Ledyard, remaining in that family’s collection until 1980. The painting has been prodigiously exhibited at some of the most significant exhibitions devoted to Sargent, demonstrating the profound significance which Corner of the Church of San Stae, Venice holds within the artist’s broader oeuvre. Revealing his innermost interests and passions, the present work visualizes how “as an architect in paint, Sargent preserved his own version of the stones of Venice” (D. S. Janis, “Venice,” op. cit., p. 214).