(Stockholm 1665 – 1745 Venezia) and Gian Antonio Pellegrini (Venezia 1675 – 1741) attributed to A fantastic view of Venice with young women sitting in a gondola on the Bacino di San Marco, Capriccio veneziano con una gondola sul Bacino di San Marco, oil on canvas, 38 x 46 cm, framed, (Wo)

This painting is probably a rare collaboration between the Swede, Johan Richter, living in Venice and the Venetian, Gianantonio Pellegrini. We are grateful to Professor Bernard Aikema, University of Nijmegen, Holland, for confirmation that the figures are an autograph work by Pellegrini. The silhouette of the city is without doubt from the hand of Johan or Giovanni Richter, who left his home in Sweden at the age of 30, becoming a pupil of Carlevarijs in Venice. He remained in the city until the end of his life and specialised in topographical views and capricci, which are characterised by vivid colours and animated figures in the foreground, as well as boats and gondolas which accentuate the space between the perspectival levels. He was a master at combining fantasy landscapes and existing places in his original capricci. Provenance: Harry Chester, Privy Council Office, Downing Street, London; Christie’s 6 December 1856, lot 47 as by “Marieski”; P. Castle Smith, 1908 as by Canaletto, A phantastic view of Venice.