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The Square of Saint Mark's, Venice
Canaletto1742/1744
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC
Washington, DC, United States
Details
- Title: The Square of Saint Mark's, Venice
- Creator: Canaletto
- Date Created: 1742/1744
- Physical Dimensions: overall: 114.6 x 153 cm (45 1/8 x 60 1/4 in.)
- Provenance: Probably Henry Howard, 4th earl of Carlisle [1694-1758], or Frederick, 5th earl of Carlisle [1748-1825], Castle Howard, Yorkshire;[1] by descent to Hon. Geoffrey William Howard [1877-1935], Castle Howard, Yorkshire; sold 1938 by the Trustees of Geoffrey Howard to Barbara Hutton, the countess Hangwitz Reventlow [1912-1979], Winfield House, London;[2] gift 1945 to NGA. [1] The date of acquisition of the group of paintings by Canaletto at Castle Howard is uncertain. Although the greatest part of the picture collection appears to have been brought together by Frederick, 5th earl of Carlisle (1748-1825), who traveled in Italy in 1768, it is almost certain that the Canalettos were acquired by his father, the 4th earl. Some of these were certainly at Castle Howard by 1745, where they were seen by Lady Oxford in an account of her journey in that year through northern England into Scotland: "April 27, Saturday. Set out from York for Castle Howard, the seat of the Earl of Carlisle . . . in the drawing-room . . . are several views of Venice by Canaletti lately put up there" (Finberg, Hilda F., "Canaletto in England," _The Walpole Society_ 9 (1920-1921): 25). The probate inventory taken in 1758 (Castle Howard Archives F4/1) includes several references to "views of Venice," including eighteen in the "Blue Coffoy Drawing Room." Moreover, the 5th earl does not record any Canalettos in his list of works of art bought by himself, but does include "between 30 & 40 views of Venice small" and "10 views of Venice Canaletti" in his list of "the best pictures at Castle Howard not purchased by me" (Castle Howard Archives J14/30/2; information from Eeyan Hartley, Keeper of Archives, letter of 7 December 1993). The standard eighteenth- and nineteenth-century descriptions of the Castle Howard paintings collection specify few individual pictures by Canaletto: Neale 1818-1823, 5: n.p., Castle Howard, Yorkshire: "Eighteen fine views.-Canaletti"; Waagen, Gustav Friedrich, _Treasures of Art in Great Britain_, 3 vols., London, 1854: 3: 323-324, no. 69: "'A large view of Venice [_The Bacino di San Marco_ (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)]. In every respect one of the best works of the master, whose extraordinary merit can only be appreciated in England.' Nos. 71 88, 'Pictures by Canaletto, some of them very excellent.'" Henry Howard, 4th earl of Carlisle, made his second visit to Italy in 1738-1739 and was said by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu to have been in Venice in November 1738 (Halsband, Robert, ed., _The Complete Letters of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu_, 3 vols., Oxford, 1965-1967: 1: 127, 148-149). The family tradition is that the paintings were acquired from Canaletto himself by the 4th earl of Carlisle (undated letter in NGA curatorial files from the 12th and present earl of Carlisle, Naworth Castle, Brampton, Cumbria). According to Browning (Browning, H. Ellen, "The Canaletto Collection at Castle Howard", _Art Journal_ 68 (1905): 340) there were, in 1905, four large and nine smaller views by Canaletto in the "Canaletto Room" at Castle Howard, as well as eleven smaller works by Marieschi. Three more "hanging in the music-room and one in Lady Carlisle's drawing-room" were evidently large pictures by Canaletto. A curious note on the early provenance of the National Gallery's paintings is provided by the inscription ("Bought of Lord Carlisle/ 1825 Gower") on the reverse of the lining canvas of 1945.15.4, suggesting that the painting was sold by the 5th earl in 1825. (George Granville, baron Gower [1758-1833], became 2d marquess of Stafford in 1803 and 1st duke of Sutherland in 1833. He was one of the syndicate of three, together with his uncle the duke of Bridgewater and the 5th earl of Carlisle, involved with the importation of the Italian pictures from the Orléans collection in France in 1797-1798). The 5th earl died in 1825, so it may be that his son, George, 6th earl of Carlisle (1773-1848) sold the painting after his father's death to assist with the usual financial problems connected with probate. As Eeyan Hartley points out (letter of 7 December 1993 in NGA curatorial files), "This leaves the puzzle as to when the painting was returned to the Castle Howard collection." Constable, W. G., _Canaletto: Giovanni Antonio Canal, 1697-1768_, 2nd ed. revised by J. G. Links, 2 vols., Oxford, 1989: 2:nos. 40, 50, 85 [b], 154, 131, 171, 236, 334, discusses eight of the Castle Howard paintings as by Canaletto or his studio. Links, J. G., _Canaletto_, Oxford, 1982: 83-84, noting the uneven quality of the Castle Howard Canalettos, most of which were sold in the late 1930s or destroyed by fire in 1940, suggested that the 4th earl of Carlisle may have employed an agent other than Joseph Smith for his acquisition of paintings by the artist. "Such an agent may well have had his own sources for view paintings, but he or Lord Carlisle must have gone to Canaletto for three pictures of the collection": the Washington paintings, signed with the artist's initials, an unheard-of-practice before the 1740s, and the Boston view of the Bacino di San Marco from the Dogana, one of the artist's masterpieces. [2] Information from the archival house lists of the collections, Castle Howard. For a resumé of the paintings formerly at Castle Howard, see Constable and Links 1989, 2: 203, and note 1. _The Bacino di San Marco_ (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston) was acquired in 1939 from Castle Howard through the intermediation of Captain J. Spink, London, who may also have been involved with the sale of the other paintings (information from the Museum of Fine Arts curatorial files).
- Medium: oil on canvas
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