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Lot Essay
The limited facts surrounding Marieschi’s life – which ended when he was barely forty-three – are well-known. He is thought to have trained and practised as a set-designer until turning his hand to vedute, establishing his reputation as a view painter by the mid-1730s and adding lustre to the genre with his lively use of brushwork. Few of his view pictures have early recorded provenance, and his only known patron was the great collector Count Johannes Matthias von der Schulenburg. It has also been established with near certainty that Marieschi focused his energies exclusively on painting landscape and architecture, working in tandem with a number of different figure painters to complete the staffage in his vedute: amongst them Gaspare Diziani, Francesco Simonini and Giovanni Antonio Guardi.
This view is taken from a point near the Riva degli Schiavoni, in late afternoon light, showing, from the left, the Dogana and Santa Maria della Salute in the distance, with, to the right, the Zecca, the Libreria, the Piazzetta with the Columns of Saint Mark and Saint Theodore, and then the Doge's Palace and, in the foreground on the extreme right, the Prison; behind the Doge's Palace, the top of the Campanile is visible, with its instantly recognisable pyramidal spire. There are five other known treatments of this same view (see R. Toledano, Michele Marieschi, Milan, 1995, pp. 58-61, nos. V.5a-V.5e), all of broadly similar scale, though the Petworth picture is marginally the largest. The receding perspective has the pleasing effect of communicating at once both the grandeur of Venice, seen close up with Doge’s Palace and the Prison, and its expansive scope, as viewed across the volume of sky and water. Here, with boats steering calmly into view and small groups of figures gathering in front of the Doge’s Palace, Marieschi creates a sense of quiet late afternoon activity.
We are grateful to Ralph Toledano for confirming the attribution to Marieschi, on first-hand inspection of the picture.
This view is taken from a point near the Riva degli Schiavoni, in late afternoon light, showing, from the left, the Dogana and Santa Maria della Salute in the distance, with, to the right, the Zecca, the Libreria, the Piazzetta with the Columns of Saint Mark and Saint Theodore, and then the Doge's Palace and, in the foreground on the extreme right, the Prison; behind the Doge's Palace, the top of the Campanile is visible, with its instantly recognisable pyramidal spire. There are five other known treatments of this same view (see R. Toledano, Michele Marieschi, Milan, 1995, pp. 58-61, nos. V.5a-V.5e), all of broadly similar scale, though the Petworth picture is marginally the largest. The receding perspective has the pleasing effect of communicating at once both the grandeur of Venice, seen close up with Doge’s Palace and the Prison, and its expansive scope, as viewed across the volume of sky and water. Here, with boats steering calmly into view and small groups of figures gathering in front of the Doge’s Palace, Marieschi creates a sense of quiet late afternoon activity.
We are grateful to Ralph Toledano for confirming the attribution to Marieschi, on first-hand inspection of the picture.