A river landscape with bathers

Francesco Zuccarelli left Venice for London in 1752, possibly on the advice of his most faithful patron, Joseph Smith, who was British Consul in Venice from 1744 and an enthusiastic collector of contemporary Venetian art. In England, Zuccarelli found a ready market for his pastoral scenes and quickly gained the favor of critics and collectors alike. He was admitted to the Dilettanti Society and received the patronage of significant collectors such as Thomas Coke, 1st Earl of Leicester (1754-1842) and Charles Wyndham, 2nd Earl of Egremont (1710-1763). The large number of engravings made after his works is proof of the extent of his success during this period.

In this bucolic capriccio, Zuccarelli demonstrates his ability to absorb the idiosyncrasies of the English arcadian landscape encountered during his stay in Britain and reinterpret them in his own manner. Here, he juxtaposes various narratives, uniting vignettes of daily life in which bathers frolic playfully and countrywomen sit observing from the riverbanks, imbuing the quotidian subject matter with a dream-like quality.

We are grateful to Dott.ssa Federica Spadotto for her assistance in cataloguing this lot.