(Venice 1712–1793)
The Piazza San Marco, Venice,
oil on canvas, 26.5 x 45.5 cm, framed

Provenance:
Collection of the Rt. Hon. George Augustus Frederick Cavendish-Bentinck (1821–1891), London;
with Galerie Heim, Paris;
Private collection, Paris (from 1958);
sale, Sotheby’s, London, 14 April 2011, lot 236 (as Francesco Guardi)

Exhibited:
Paris, Galerie Heim, Tableaux de Maîtres anciens, 1958, no. 27, illustrated

The present small canvas represents Piazza San Marco in Venice; the façade of the basilica is centrally positioned between the perspectivally receding buildings, to the right beyond the Campanile, part of the east side of the Palazzo Ducale can be seen. To the left are the buildings of the Procuratie Vecchie, and beyond the Torre dell’Orologio, while opposite the Procuratie Nuove are bathed in a warm evening light falling from the left. The scene is animated by numerous figures gathered and grouped throughout the piazza, which are rendered with brilliant touches of shimmering colour typical of Guardi, who is among the most celebrated view painters of the eighteenth century.

Francesco Guardi received his training in the family studio: his entire career was spent in Venice and the first decades of his activity were spent as a figure painter. It was probably only from the mid 1750s that he began to dedicate himself to view painting, given the strong demand from the foreign market, and the absence of Canaletto who was resident in England during this period. While initially he referred to models by the latter, and by Michele Marieschi, Guardi rapidly evolved a personal style entirely of his own. His subjects were to include not only views of Venice and the lagoon, but also numerous imaginary capricci and views of villas on the Venetian mainland. Distancing himself from the sharply detailed and controlled painting of his models, Guardi’s works are characterised by fluidly vibrant brushstrokes, which in time became increasingly free. altering perspectival reality and dissolving figures into cyphers of colour.

The depiction of Piazza San Marco looking towards the Basilica is one of the views that Guardi returned to frequently, as the Grand Tourists especially cherished this famous site. View painting remained in significant demand throughout the century. The earliest renderings of this subject by Guardi date to the second half of the 1750s: they are distinguished by a cool palette and he only later introduced a more luminous palette, as we can see in the example conserved in the Metropolitan Museum, New York. During the last decade of his activity his supports became increasingly smaller, as is the case in the present painting, which is datable to after 1780. The present painting is comparable to the work in the National Gallery, London, with which it shares the same delicate shades of pink and light blue, the richly vibrant atmosphere, and a harmonious combination of light and shade which generates great beauty.

Francesco Guardi’s preparatory drawing for this composition of Piazza San Marco looking east towards the Basilica belongs to the same period and is conserved in the Museum of Art, Cleveland.

Technical analysis
A red-brown ground is present in the present painting and this helps to create the typical tone and graininess apparent in Francesco Guardi’s veduta. The painting quality is extremely high, with the author’s renown ability to suggest figures and details with a few small spots of colour.

Pigments detected by vis-RS include Prussian blue which has been used in all of the blue areas (sky, rooftops, clothes), vermillion (used in the pink clouds), a carmine type lake which has been used in some of the clothes, ochre and Naples yellow. Larger pigment particles are diffused over the pictorial surface, making the specific sand-like effect that Guardi used. 

We are grateful to Gianluca Poldi for the technical examination.