Francesco Guardi

Richard S. Davis (1917-1985), former curator of the Minneapolis Institute of Arts;

Anonymous sale, London, Christie's, 6 July 1987, lot 50;

With the Lefevre Gallery, London, in 1993,

Where acquired by the previous owner;

Anonymous sale, London, Christie's, 10 July 2014, lot 123;

Where acquired by the present collector

Houston, Museum of Fine Arts, The Guardi Family: selected from American museums and collections, 1958, no. 32 (catalogue by J. Byam Shaw).

Venice, Fondazione Giorgio Cini, Canaletto e Guardi, 1962, no. 62, pl. 62 (catalogue by K.T. Parker and J. Byam Shaw).

Venice, Palazzo Grassi, Mostra dei Guardi, 1965, 'Disegni', no. 23 (catalogue by P. Zampetti).

Venice, Isola di San Giorgio Maggiore, Francesco Guardi: Vedute Capricci Feste, 1993, no. 4 (catalogue by A. Bettagno)

J. Byam Shaw, 'Unpublished Guardi Drawings', The Art Quarterly, XVII, 1954, pp. 159-60, no. 6;

J. Scholz, 'Drawings by Francesco and Gianantonio Guardi', The Art Quarterly, XVII, 1954, p. 159;

A. Morassi, 'Novità su Francesco Guardi', Arte Veneta, XIII-XIV, 1959-60, p. 173, fig. 236;

F.J.B. Watson, 'The Collections of Sir Alfred Beit', The Connoisseur, DLXXXVI, April 1960, p. 161;

T. Pignatti, Disegni dei Guardi, Florence 1967, pl. XXVII;

A. Morassi, Guardi: Antonio e Francesco Guardi, Milan 1973, I, pp. 248 and 415, under no. 565;

L. Rossi Bortolatto, L'opera completa di Francesco Guardi, Milan 1974, pp. 114-5, no. 440a, reproduced;

A. Morassi, Tutti i disegni di Antonio, Francesco e Giacomo Guardi, Venice 1975, no. 379;

M. Magnifico, in Vedute italiane del' 700 in collezioni private italiane, exhib. cat., Venice, Museo Diocesano d'Arte Sacra, Sant' Apollonia 1987, p. 45, under nos. 38-39;

M. Wrey and S. Spicer (eds.), Christie's Review of the Season, Oxford 1987, p. 148;

A. Craievich, in Francesco Guardi 1712-1793, exhib. cat., Venice, Museo Correr, 2012-2013, p. 129, under no. 34

This unusually large and beautifully preserved sheet is one of the finest and most evocative drawings by Francesco Guardi to survive and an extraordinary testament to his talents as a draughtsman. The view depicted is that of Ca’ Pesaro and its neighboring buildings on the Grand Canal, as seen from Palazzo Contarini-Pisani, with the drawing serving as a preparatory work for a painting of the same subject, formerly in the Treccani collection, Milan and today in a private collection (fig.1).¹

Although the artist has centered his composition on the Baroque splendor of Ca’ Pesaro, which is today best known for housing Venice’s museum of modern art, the drawing also provides an accurate and elaborate account of the buildings and landmarks that surround it. On its left are the Palazzo Correggio and the Palazzo Donà, which are separated from Ca’ Pesaro by the rio de S. Maria Mater Domini. To the right lie an unnamed 17^th century Palazzo and beyond this the Palazzo Giovanelli, above whose roof we catch a glimpse of the pediment of the church of San Stae. Interestingly, Guardi has, on the verso of the present work (fig.2), executed a smaller, more detailed rendering of the more distant elements of the composition, such as the Palazzo Duodo and the Palazzo Ca Tron, which in the larger drawing to the recto are not treated with the same level of detail, instead dissolving away into fluid blocks of brown wash.

The aforementioned ex-Treccani collection picture was painted as one of a pair, its pendant being The Grand Canal at Palazzo Corner della Ca' Granda.² We are fortunate that the preparatory drawing for the Palazzo Corner painting also survives, today housed in the collection of the British Museum, London,³ as it provides us with a fascinating insight, alongside our drawing, to the quite remarkable, fluid manner with which Guardi was creating drawings in the 1760s. This technique coincided with the waning influence of Canaletto on the younger artist, as a more dynamic sense of composition and a subtler, more evocative use of light came to the fore in Guardi’s paintings and drawings. Whilst the British Museum drawing is enlightening from a technical standpoint it also demonstrates, by comparison, what scintillating condition our drawing is in. Though it is natural to focus on the drawn areas of our sheet, it is equally important to pay attention to the beautifully preserved white reserves of paper, which Guardi has skillfully left untouched to create a wonderful sense of luminosity throughout the drawing, whether in the shimmering light reflected off the Grand Canal or the cool blocks of sunlight that reflect neatly off the carefully planned facades of the various palazzi.

While drawings by Francesco Guardi do appear with some regularity on the open market, works of this scale, ambition and quality are immense rarities. The only drawing that can even be discussed in the same breath as the present work is a handsome sheet sold in these rooms in 2021, depicting The Return of the Bucintoro from S. Nicolò di Lido and now in the collection of the Minneapolis Institute of Art.⁴ The reappearance of this quite exquisite drawing therefore provides a virtually unique opportunity for both private and institutional collectors alike to pursue a quintessentially Venetian view by an artist so intimately linked and inspired by the city, working at the peak of his artistic maturity.

1.Craievich, op. cit., no. 34

2.Rossi Bortolatto, op. cit., no. 442

3.Craievich, op. cit., no. 43; London, The British Museum, inv. no. 1866,0714.12

4.Sale, New York, Sotheby's, 27 January 2021, lot 59 ($1,230,000); Minneapolis, Minneapolis Institute of Art, inv. no. 2021.25