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Venetian Drawings from American Collections

September 29 – November 24, 1974
Main Floor, Galleries 68, 69, 70, 71 (3,000+ sq. ft.)

Canaletto, Ascension Day Festival at Venice, 1766, pen and brown ink with gray wash, heightened with white, over graphite on laid paper, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1963.15.5

This exhibition is no longer on view at the National Gallery.

Overview: 123 drawings from the 15th through the 18th century included works by Giovanni Bellini, Vittore Carpaccio, Titian, Veronese, Tintoretto, Giovanni Battista Piazzetta, Canaletto, and Francesco Guardi. The selection and catalogue texts were made by Terisio Pignatti, director of the Civic Museums of Venice, for the International Exhibitions Foundation, which circulated the show. The works were loaned by 42 American museums and private collections. In Washington, the exhibition opened at the same time as a festival of Venetian music at the Kennedy Center.

Sponsor: The project was supported by grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the David Lloyd Kreeger Foundation.

Attendance: 39,575

Catalog: Venetian Drawings from American Collections, by Terisio Pignatti. Washington, DC: International Exhibitions Foundation, 1974.

Other Venues: Kimball Art Museum, Fort Worth
Saint Louis Museum of Art