Francesco Guardi and the Duke of Buccleuch
01/07/2008 | Events |
Exhibition Canaletto.Venezia e i suoi splendori to be held in Treviso from 23 October.
Another positive response has arrived in these days in Artematica premises and, as we promised you in our last newsletter, here we are once again to tell you about the new loans granted, coming from another prestigious English collection.
In 1754 John Montagu - also known as Lord Brudenell (1735-1770), and the Duke of Buccleuch - undertook his Grand Tour in Italy, which lasted six years.
During his travel all over the Italian peninsula, he stopped in the isles of the lagoon for more than one year, from 21 September 1758 to 24 February 1760.
His name holds a very important role within view painting – as a matter of fact, he ordered Antonio Joli a series of thirty-eight view paintings, besides being one of the first patrons of Francesco Guardi’s (1712-1793).
After a few centuries, the paintings entitled “Canal Grande con le fabbriche nuove” and “Ponte di Rialto con il Palazzo dei Camerlenghi” - belonging to a series of six works - will come back to Italy and could be admired at the exhibition Canaletto. Venezia e is uoi splendori to be held in Treviso from 23 October.
The extraordinary aspect of such a good piece of news is due to the fact that the above mentioned view paintings belonging to the Duke of Buccleuch’s collection, near Edinburgh, have never been lent outside Great Britain.
The possibility to identify who the patron is and establish when the whole series was painted makes the group of painting special just for this very reason.
Through some details reproduced in these artworks, it is possible to date back to the approximate, but not certain, date when they were painted.
In the “Ponte di Rialto con il palazzo dei Camerlenghi”, for instance, the campanile of San Bartolomeo is represented as it looked like after 1754.
In the “Canal Grande con le fabbriche nuove”, instead, the hypothetical date of execution may be associated to the detail of palazzetto Balbi - belonging to the famous art dealer and collector Joseph Smith -, which is represented in the painting as it looked like after its restoration, ended in 1751, by the architect, engraver, and painter Antonio Visentini.
The six paintings are proof of the beginning of Guardi’s view painting, which can be dated back around 1755.
This is the reason why experts give the mentioned works a special importance in the reconstruction of the different phases of the artistic life of the painter.
Born in Venice from a couple belonging to the gentry of the Trento area, both of whom were artists too, he is trained in his father’s workshop, - which in the meantime was moved to Venice – where he paints some copies, portraits, and historic, and holy scenes.
Guardi is the only artist among view painters who never moves from Venice, where his clients are, above all, the State and the Church, besides the nobility and high-prelates.
For them, he paints, among other subjects, big dimension celebrating paintings, such as the well-known Feste dogali (1775-76).
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