Palazzo Ducale from the Bacino di San Marco, Venice, with the Bucintoro returning to the Molo on Ascension Day,
oil on canvas, 71 x 97 cm, framed

Provenance:
Private European collection

This painting depicts a view of the Palazzo Ducale, Venice, seen from the Bacino of San Marco. Here, the artist has represented a topical moment in the Venetian cultural calendar: the annual occasion when the Doge, aboard the state vessel called the Bucintoro, sails out into the Adriatic to celebrate the symbolic marriage of Venice to the sea by throwing a gold ring into the open waters. In this instance, having officiated over this ritual, the return of the Doge is represented.

Stylistically this painting is close to those of the Master of the Langmatt Foundation Views. This anonymous artist’s name is given for a series of thirteen Venetian views in the Langmatt Foundation, Baden. This painter may be identified with Apollonio Facchinetti, called Domenichini, who was active in Venice and a member of the guild of painters, the fraglia, from 1757. It is thought he may have been an apprentice of Luca Carlevarijs or Michele Marieschi and perhaps even of Francesco Albotto. His works were for a long time confused with those of Francesco Tironi.

Dario Succi was the first to suggest identifying Apollonio Domenichini with this anonymous master (see: D. Succi, Apollonio Domenichini: il Maestro della Fondazione Langmatt, in: Da Canaletto a Zuccarelli, exhibition catalogue, Udine 2003, pp. 103-–107). The painter’s name was discovered by Succi in the correspondence between the Venetian art dealer Maria Sasso and Sir John Strange (1732–1799), scholar-diplomat in the Veneto from 1771 and British resident at Venice from 1773 to 1788. Domenichini was active between the 1740s and 1750s as can be discerned from the topographical details in his views; he benefited from Canaletto’s decade-long absence in England. His paintings were especially favoured by travellers attaining their cultural formation on the Grand Tour.