On loan to The Met The Met accepts temporary loans of art both for short-term exhibitions and for long-term display in its galleries.
Palazzo Vendramin, Venice
Attributed to John Ruskin British
Not on view
Between 1845 and 1852, John Ruskin (1819–1900)—British art critic, artist, social reformer, and quintessential Victorian—made repeated trips to Venice to study Gothic architectural monuments, which he felt were in danger of destruction or alteration by modern restoration practices. He purchased and commissioned daguerreotypes from photographers working in the city, including an itinerant French practitioner, likely Cavalier Iller. For Ruskin, the resulting daguerreotypes preserved a disappearing heritage, and he used them as the basis for illustrations in his encyclopedic opus The Stones of Venice (1851–53). This oblique view of a still-standing fifteenth-century palazzo on the Grand Canal emphasizes the juxtaposition of the heavily ornamented facade against an austere garden-facing exterior wall.
