(Venice 1715 - c. 1770)
The Bucintoro at the Mole, Venice; and The Grand Canal with the Rialto Bridge, Venice,
oil on canvas, 54.5 x 89.9 and 55.5 x 94.5 cm, framed (2)

We are grateful to Dario Succi for confirming the attribution.

The oeuvre of this master derived from a set of thirteen vedute kept at the eponymous Langmatt Foundation in Baden, Switzerland (see Mythos Venedig. Venezianische Veduten des 18. Jahrhunderts, exhibition catalogue, Museum Langmatt, Baden 1994, pp. 62-117). The hypothesis that Apollonio Domenichini could be the painter of this large body of finely executed and distinctive vedute, which had collectively been attributed to the Langmatt Master, was debated by scholars of Venetian painting, however it was only with the discovery of a lost inscription on the reverse of an original canvas under the lining of a painting that it was possible to definitely identify Domenichini as the painter of the Langmatt views.

Domenichini´s name is registered in the Fraglia (guild) of Venice in 1757, however details of his life are relatively scarce, although scholars have started to construct a fuller picture through his paintings and various archival sources. From a catalogue of the paintings of Count Bonomo Algarotti, Succi discovered that he was born in Venice in 1715. This catalogue, which was compiled in 1776, makes clear that Domenichini had died, but does not provide specific date, but Succi suggests it was probably around 1770 (see D. Succi, Apollonio Domenichini. Il “Maestro della Fondazione Langmatt”, in Da Canaletto a Zuccarelli. Il Paesaggio Veneto del Settecento, exhibition catalogue, Tavagnacco, 2003, p. 104). He may have been a pupil of Luca Carelvarijs (1663–1730), and seems to have been independently active from circa 1740. The homogenous group at the Langmatt Foundation have been dated to circa 1744 on the basis of architectural details.

Domenichini’s work has been linked by Succi to the work of Michele Marieschi (1710–1743) and Francesco Albotto (1721–1757), although in general his work seems to have more in common with the Canalettesque works of Francesco Tironi (1745–1797).

The first view of the present pair of paintings shows the buildings of the Piazza San Marco and the quayside, with the bucintoro in front of the Doge’s Palace. The bucintoro or bucentaur, an elaborately decorated barge, was used by the Doge for celebrations on special holidays.

The second painting shows a view across the Grand Canal, with the Fabbriche Vecchie, the Palazzo dei Camerlenghi, the Palazzo Civran, and the Fondaco dei Tedeschi.