(Palmanova 1762–1844 Milan)
The Canal Grande at Palazzo Bembo, Venice, under moonlight,
oil on canvas, 53.5 x 82.5 cm, framed

We are grateful to Fabrizio Magani for confirming the attribution of the present painting.

The composition of the present painting is based on an engraving by Dionisio Valesi published between 1778 and 1779 which in turn derives from a drawing by Francesco Guardi in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.

In the present painting Giuseppe Bernardino Bison repeats the composition of the engraving without any substantial change. However, anticipating the fashion for romanticism, he elects to render the subject as a nocturne, illuminating the boat in the foreground as well as the windows of Palazzo Bembo on the left, which is shown as it was before it fell into ruin in the nineteenth century. Bison demonstrates his skill at interpreting these familiar compositions in an entirely personal manner, thanks to his lively pictorial description that lends this view a quotidian, genre quality. The vibrant light in this nocturne view with Palazzo Bembo confers a scenic, picturesque, character to the work.

This work belongs to the early years of Bison’s career, and certainly to within the eighteenth century, when the artist specialised as an easel painter of views and landscapes, retracing the steps of the great tradition of Venetian painting. Yet this picture also signals a renewal of the received tradition for the new century, responding to the new taste of the bourgeoisie who desired mementos of the previous century’s golden age. During the last decade of the eighteenth century Bison worked in various cities in the Veneto and Friuli, also asserting himself as a talented fresco painter. Following a period of thirty years working from Trieste, in 1831 he moved definitively to Milan where he concluded the final years of his successful career.