Standing near the end of Venice’s Grand Canal, Santa Maria della Salute became one of the city’s most recognizable sights thanks to its distinctive dome, and the one most often represented in paintings made for sale to visitors. This work, which was among the earliest purchased by The Met, in 1871, was produced with a pendant, or companion view, representing the Grand Canal above the Rialto Bridge.
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As Santa Maria della Salute is among the largest and most prominently situated buildings in Venice, views of the church from the Grand Canal or the harbor basin must often have been requested in the eighteenth century by visitors to the city. Both Francesco Guardi and his predecessor, Canaletto, painted the church repeatedly and from various angles. The fact that Santa Maria della Salute is paired in this case with a view of the Rialto Bridge is unusual. The picture and its companion piece are similarly inscribed on the reverses and the two works probably date to 1765 or later.
The crenellated brick wall that once enclosed the warehouses behind the Dogana or customs house is seen to the left (these structures are now faced with marble). Longhena’s Baroque church, consecrated in 1687, is at the center, flanked by the Seminario Patriarcale, which had been completed by the same architect in 1670. On the right are older buildings: the apse, nave, and façade of the church of San Gregorio seen from behind, and the premises of the abbazia of the same name, beside the canal. The ecclesiastical buildings, largely unchanged to the present day, have a weight and durability that differ entirely from the airy lightness that Guardi suggests. There are numerous gondolas and three larger sailing boats on the water, and people walking toward and across the large open campo in front of the church. Two poles at the lower right corner of the canvas indicate the near side of the Grand Canal.
Katharine Baetjer 2017
Inscription: Inscribed (reverse, upper left, in a later hand): dalla / Veduta Salute in Venezia / del F.co Guardi (view of the Salute in Venice by Francesco Guardi)
?Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 5th Earl of Shaftesbury, Wimborne St. Giles, Dorset (until d. 1811); ?his brother, Cropley Ashley-Cooper, 6th Earl of Shaftesbury, Wimborne St. Giles (1811–d. 1851); ?his son, Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury, Wimborne St. Giles (1851–at least 1869); [Léon Gauchez, Paris, with Alexis Febvre, Paris, until 1870; sold to Blodgett]; William T. Blodgett, Paris and New York (1870–71; sold half share to Johnston); William T. Blodgett, New York, and John Taylor Johnston, New York (1871; sold to The Met)
Detroit Institute of Arts. "Thirty-Eight Great Paintings from The Metropolitan Museum of Art," October 2–28, 1951, no catalogue.
Art Gallery of Toronto. "Thirty-Eight Great Paintings from The Metropolitan Museum of Art," November 14–December 12, 1951, no catalogue.
City Art Museum of St. Louis. "Thirty-Eight Great Paintings from The Metropolitan Museum of Art," January 6–February 4, 1952, no catalogue.
Seattle Art Museum. "Thirty-Eight Great Paintings from The Metropolitan Museum of Art," March 1–June 30, 1952, no catalogue.
Milwaukee Auditorium. "Metropolitan Art Museum $1,000,000 Masterpiece Exhibition," March 7–14, 1953, unnumbered cat. (p. 18).
Austin, Tex. City Coliseum. "Texas Fine Arts Festival: Metropolitan Museum $1,000,000 Collection of Old Masters," April 18–26, 1953, not on checklist.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Venetian Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum," May 1–September 2, 1974, no catalogue.
THIS WORK MAY NOT BE LENT.
Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury. Diary entry. 1869 [see letter of July 23, 1973 in archive file], in a list of the paintings at St. Giles House, includes two separate entries reading "View in Venice by Guardi - bought in Venice by 5th Earl".
[Henry James]. "Art: The Dutch and Flemish Pictures in New York." Atlantic Monthly 29 (June 1872), p. 763 [reprinted in John L. Sweeney, ed., "The Painter's Eye," London, 1956, p. 65].
F[ritz von]. Harck. "Berichte und Mittheilungen aus Sammlungen und Museen, über staatliche Kunstpflege und Restaurationen, neue Funde: Aus amerikanischen Galerien." Repertorium für Kunstwissenschaft 11 (1888), p. 73.
Bernhard Berenson. The Venetian Painters of the Renaissance. 3rd ed. New York, 1894, p. 109 [3rd, illustrated ed., 1897, p. 102].
B[ernard]. Berenson. "Les peintures italiennes de New-York et de Boston." Gazette des beaux-arts, 3rd ser., 15 (March 1896), p. 199, mentions two excellent paintings by Guardi in the Museum.
George A. Simonson. Francesco Guardi, 1712–1793. London, 1904, p. 93, no. 170.
Harry B. Wehle. The Metropolitan Museum of Art: A Catalogue of Italian, Spanish, and Byzantine Paintings. New York, 1940, p. 275, ill., calls it a pendant to "The Grand Canal above the Rialto" (MMA, 71.119) and notes that both are "comparatively early works".
Josephine L. Allen and Elizabeth E. Gardner. A Concise Catalogue of the European Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1954, p. 45.
J[ames]. Byam Shaw. "Guardi at the Royal Academy." Burlington Magazine 97 (January 1955), p. 15 n. 5.
Burton B. Fredericksen and Federico Zeri. Census of Pre-Nineteenth-Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections. Cambridge, Mass., 1972, pp. 96, 493, 605.
Federico Zeri with the assistance of Elizabeth E. Gardner. Italian Paintings: A Catalogue of the Collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Venetian School. New York, 1973, p. 29, pl. 27, call it an early work and note that this is not the subject usually chosen by Guardi as a pendant to the Grand Canal above the Rialto.
Antonio Morassi. Guardi: Antonio e Francesco Guardi. Venice, [1973?], vol. 1, pp. 243, 398, no. 465; vol. 2, fig. 471, dates it about 1760–65.
Luigina Rossi Bortolatto. L'opera completa di Francesco Guardi. Milan, 1974, pp. 101–2, no. 210, ill.
Howard Hibbard. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1980, pp. 9, 18, 353, fig. 21 (color).
Katharine Baetjer. European Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art by Artists Born Before 1865: A Summary Catalogue. New York, 1995, p. 93, ill.
Katharine Baetjer. "Buying Pictures for New York: The Founding Purchase of 1871." Metropolitan Museum Journal 39 (2004), pp. 173, 182, 218, 244–45, appendix 1A no. 146, ill. p. 218 and fig. 24.
Katharine Baetjer inThe Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York: Chefs-d'œuvre de la peinture européenne. Exh. cat., Fondation Pierre Gianadda. Martigny, 2006, p. 58 [Catalan ed., Barcelona, 2006, p. 40].
Katharine Baetjer inCanaletto: Venezia e i suoi splendori. Ed. Giuseppe Pavanello and Alberto Craievich. Exh. cat., Casa dei Carraresi, Treviso. Venice, 2008, p. 284.
F[rancis]. R[ussell]. inOld Master & British Paintings: Evening Sale. Christie's, London. July 8, 2014, p. 70, dates this work and its pendant about 1782–84; identifies them as the smaller of two pairs of views of Venice listed in an undated catalogue of pictures in the Shaftesbury collection at St. Giles, valued at £30.
Francesco Guardi (Italian, Venice 1712–1793 Venice)
1712–93
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