(Venice 1824–1890)
Campo di San Giovanni e Paolo, Venice, with the church and the Scuola Grande di San Marco,
signed and dated lower right,
oil on canvas, 56 x 81.5 cm, framed

Provenance:
sale, Bonhams, London, 29 October 2008, lot 45;
Private European collection;
where acquired by the present owner

Literature:
F. Magani, La Venezia dei Grubacs, Treviso 2017, p. 29, fig. 24

The present painting shows a corner of Venice which Luigi Querena represented on several occasions during his career. The composition of this view has its source in an etching by Michele Marieschi that was part of his celebrated suite of views of Venice, Magnificentiores Selectioresque Urbis Venetiarum Prospectus, first published in 1741. This composition was depicted by Marieschi in a painting sold at Dorotheum, 25 April 2017, lot 177 and in another version (see R. Toledano, Marieschi. L’opera completa, Milan 1995, p. 93, no. V.27.A), as well as by Canaletto, in a view that is now conserved in the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C, (see W. G. Constable, revised by J. G. Links, Canaletto, Oxford 1989, no 307). During the course of the nineteenth century other painters also undertook this view, among them Carlo and Giovanni Grubacs in whose repertoire it is possible to encounter variations on the point of view of this composition (see literature, Mangani 2017, pp. 116-119). Another significant point of reference for the artists of this generation, and therefore also for Luigi Querena, was the painting showing the Rio dei mendicanti with the Scuola di San Marco which entered the Galleria dell’Accademia, Venice, in 1856 from the Manfrin collection, as a Canaletto, but was subsequently given to Bellotto.

The point of view adopted by Querena in the present painting is close to that of the engraving by Marieschi, showing the façade of San Giovanni e Paolo in a three-quarter view. In the present painting, however, the canal fully occupies the left side of the painting and is seen almost frontally, allowing only a limited, lateral view of the buildings that face the piazza.

Luigi Querena, was the son and pupil of the painter Lattanzio (1768–1853), he was also the author of architectural and interior scenes, and of episodes of the revolution of 1848–49. In 1857 he was nominated a Socio d’Onore of the Accademia at Venice, and he was among the most appreciated artists by collectors of the second half of the nineteenth century.