English Landscape Capriccio with a Column

c. 1754

Canaletto

Artist, Venetian, 1697 - 1768

We look slightly down across a sun-drenched plaza with people scattered among ruins, buildings, and around a free-standing column in this vertical landscape painting. The people we can see have light skin. Towering trees with celery, sage, and forest-green leaves frame a small plaza paved with flax-colored stones. A tree to our right almost reaches the top of the painting, and a shorter tree in front of it has toppled onto the plaza. To our left, in the lower corner, a man sits behind a shadowy balustrade, looking down. In the lower center of the painting, a man walks toward us, holding a basket over one arm and dead poultry in the other hand, and a dog sits nearby. Slightly farther back is a tall stone column with a door in its base and a statue on top. A woman wearing a red shirt and blue skirt sits on a step in front of the door. Along the left side, the plaza gives way to a tree-lined, dirt road that meanders toward a stone arch in the middle distance, and to a cluster of low buildings beyond. Two towers catch the light, one with a slate-blue dome and the other with a peach-colored steeple. Farther back from the buildings is a dark line of trees at the base of a steep green hill dotted with groves of trees, which rises high over the plaza below. Another building complex, glowing in warm tones of straw yellow, sits at its top. Small dots of red, white, and blue suggest a handful of people making their way up the hill’s wide path. A river with moss-green water pouring over a dam extends from the lower right corner into the distance along the right edge of the painting. Near the column, a man fishes at the water’s edge. The water winds back to a row of silvery-gray buildings in the far distance. Several people in red, yellow, or white, tiny in scale, dot the riverbanks and cross the bridge. A screen of thin, pale pink clouds float across the light blue sky.

Media Options

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On View

West Building Main Floor, Gallery 31

Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on canvas

  • Credit Line

    Paul Mellon Collection

  • Dimensions

    overall: 134 x 106.4 cm (52 3/4 x 41 7/8 in.)
    framed: 151.8 x 126.4 x 6.4 cm (59 3/4 x 49 3/4 x 2 1/2 in.)

  • Accession

    1964.2.1

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Probably commissioned by Thomas, 5th baron King [1712-1779], London and Ockham Park, Surrey;[1] by descent at Ockham Park to Peter Malcolm, 4th earl of Lovelace [1905-1964]; (his sale, Sotheby's, London, 13 July 1937, no. 133); purchased by (M. Knoedler & Co., London);[2] purchased 1938 by Philip Hill; Mrs. Philip Hill [later Mrs. Warwick Bryant] until 1959.[3] (Rosenberg & Stiebel, New York); purchased December 1960 by Paul Mellon, Upperville, Virginia;[4] gift 1964 to NGA.
[1] Francis Russell, "A Suffusion of Light", Country Life 187 (14 October 1993): 64, has corrected the traditional provenance of the Lovelace capriccios: "That the most prominently placed of the series-the overmantel-which alone is signed and dated 1754, is dominated by a reminiscence of the chapel at Eton leaves little doubt that the patron was neither the 3rd Lord King, nor his successor the 4th Lord, but their brother Thomas, later the 5th Lord King (1712-1779). He married an heiress and their son was sent to Eton. The original setting of the canvases was thus presumably in their London house, rather than at the family seat at Ockham . . . ." W.G. Constable, Canaletto: Giovanni Antonio Canal, 1697-1768 (2nd edition revised by J. G. Links, reissued with supplement and additional plates, 2 vols., Oxford, 1989: 1:146-147), reported the family tradition that the paintings were acquired with money brought into the family through the marriage in 1734 of Catherine Troye of Brabant to the 5th baron King, great-grandfather of the 8th baron King, 1st earl of Lovelace. The paintings are said to have been commissioned by the 5th baron and his wife, but since one is dated 1754, they must have been bought by either Peter, 3d baron King, who died in that year, or his brother, William, 4th baron King, who lived until 1767. See also Hilda F. Finberg, "The Lovelace Canalettos", The Burlington Magazine 72 (February 1938): 69, n. 1.
[2] Art Prices Current, n.s. 16 (1936-1937): 192, no. 6548.
[3] Canaletto in England, Exh. cat., Guildhall, London 1959, no. 6.
[4] Typed notations from Mellon records by David M. Robb, 14 July 1964, in NGA curatorial files.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1959

  • Canaletto in England, Guildhall, London, 1959, no. 6.

1964

  • Extended loan for use by Ambassador David K.E. Bruce, U.S. Embassy residence, London, England, 1964-1969 (on loan to Embassy when given to NGA; lent prior to 1964 by Paul Mellon).

1969

  • Extended loan to the Ambassador, U.S. Embassy residence, Brussels, Belgium, 1969-1972.

1972

  • Extended loan to the Ambassador, U.S. Embassy residence, Rome, Italy, 1972-1977.

1989

  • Canaletto, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1989-1990, no. 76.

1993

  • Canaletto & England, Birmingham Gas Hall Exhibition Gallery, England, 1993-1994, no. 38, repro., as Capriccio: river landscape with a column, a ruined Roman arch, and reminiscences of England.

2006

  • Canaletto in England: A Venetian Artist Abroad, 1746-1755, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven; Dulwich Picture Gallery, London, 2006-2007, no. 71, repro.

Bibliography

1938

  • Finberg, Hilda F. "The Lovelace Canalettos." The Burlington Magazine 72 (February 1938): 68-71.

1962

  • Constable, William George. Canaletto: Giovanni Antonio Canal, 1697-1768. 2 vols. Oxford, 1962: 1:pl. 87; 2:413, no. 474.

1965

  • Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 22, Landscape Capriccio with Column.

1967

  • Eeles, Adrian. Canaletto. London, 1967: 37, color pl. 43.

1968

  • National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 14, repro., as Landscape Capriccio with Colomn.

  • Puppi, Lionello. The Complete Paintings of Canaletto. Milan, 1968: 117, repro., no. 308.

1972

  • Fredericksen, Burton B., and Federico Zeri. Census of Pre-Nineteenth Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections. Cambridge, Mass., 1972: 43.

1975

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 52, repro., as Landscape Capriccio with Column.

1976

  • Constable and Links 1976, 1:pl. 87; 2:446, no. 474.

1977

  • Links, J. G. Canaletto and His Patrons. London, 1977: 76-77, pl. 114.

1979

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. Catalogue of the Italian Paintings. 2 vols. Washington, 1979: 1:105-106; 2:pl. 71, as Landscape Capriccio with Column.

1982

  • Links, J. G. Canaletto. Oxford, 1982: 192, pl. 186.

1985

  • Corboz, André. Canaletto: Una Venezia immaginaria. Catalogue compiled by Anna Tortorelo. 2 vols. Milan, 1985: 2:704, repro., no. P 368.

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 73, repro.

1989

  • Baetjer, Katharine, and J. G. Links. Canaletto. Exh. cat. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1989: 256-259, no. 76.

  • Constable, W. G. Canaletto: Giovanni Antonio Canal, 1697-1768. 2nd edition revised by J. G. Links, reissued with supplement and additional plates. 2 vols. Oxford, 1989: 1:pl. 87; 2:146-147, 446, no. 474.

1993

  • Liversidge, Michael, and Jane Farrington. Canaletto & England. Exh. cat. Birmingham Gas Hall Exhibition Gallery, Birmingham, 1993: 26, 27, 99, color repro. 99.

  • Ross, Nicholas. Canaletto. London, 1993: 132, repro., as Capriccio: River Landscape with a Column and a Ruined Roman Arch and Reminiscences of England.

  • Russell, Francis. "A Suffusion of Light." Country Life 187 (14 October 1993): 64.

1996

  • De Grazia, Diane, and Eric Garberson, with Edgar Peters Bowron, Peter M. Lukehart, and Mitchell Merling. Italian Paintings of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1996: 35-39, color repro. 36.

Wikidata ID

Q19660460

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