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Francesco Guardi

View on the Cannaregio Canal, Venice, c. 1775-1780

Not on View

Medium

oil on canvas

Dimensions

overall: 50 x 76.8 cm (19 11/16 x 30 1/4 in.)

Credit Line

Samuel H. Kress Collection

Accession Number

1939.1.113

Artists / Makers

Francesco Guardi (artist) Venetian, 1712 - 1793

Image Use

This image is in the public domain.
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Provenance

Achillito Chiesa, Milan, before 1924.[1] (Count Alessandro Contini Bonacossi, Florence);[2] purchased 1932 by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[3] gift 1939 to NGA.

[1] According to National Gallery of Art, Preliminary Catalogue of Paintings and Sculpture, Washington, D.C., 1941: 93. Following Chiesa's bankruptcy, his collection was dissolved at several sales in New York and Europe beginning in 1924. See Wesley Towner, The Elegant Auctioneers, New York, 1970: 382-383, 412-414. The painting does not appear in the catalogues of the Chiesa sales at the American Art Association in New York, as implied by Antonio Morassi, Guardi: Antonio Francesco Guardi, 2 vols., Venice [1973-1975]: 1:418.

[2] Morassi [1973]: 418, inserted the Matthiesen Galleries, Berlin, 1930, into the provenance at this point; he was, however, the only source to include Matthiessen and cited no documentation. Kress records list only Contini Bonacossi, from whom the Foundation regularly acquired paintings in this period.

[3] Notations in the Kress records (NGA curatorial files), give the date of acquisition as 1932. Roberto Longhi's expert opinion on the back of a Kress photograph (NGA curatorial files) is dated November 1932. Alfred M. Frankfurter, "Eighteenth Century Venice in a New York Collection", The Fine Arts 19 (1932): 10, repro. 9, documents the painting in the Kress Collection by December of that year. See also The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/2441.

Associated Names

Chiesa, Achillito
Contini Bonacossi, Alessandro, Count
Kress Foundation, Samuel H.

Exhibition History

1940: Masterpieces of Art. European & American Paintings 1500-1900, New York World's Fair, 1940, no. 29, repro., as The Bridge with Three Arches.

1994: The Glory of Venice: Art in the Eighteenth Century, Royal Academy of Arts, London; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Museo del Settecento Veneziano - Ca'Rezzonico, Venice, 1994-1995, no. 213 (London and Washington), no. 83 (Venice), repro.

Technical Summary

The support is a coarse, plain-weave fabric prepared with a gritty, thinly applied dark red ground. The surface composition was painted directly (without an isolating layer) over a preexisting composition consisting of white scrollwork and flowers painted on a beige background. In x-radiographs these elements appear to have been loosely executed as in a sketch and form the left end of a larger decorative panel. Losses in the underlying paint layer were filled before the surface composition was applied. The surface paint was applied thinly, except in the whites and highlights, which show a somewhat thicker buildup of paint. Pigment analysis using polarized light microscopy found ultramarine ash, vermilion, red lake, van dyke brown, yellow ocher, charcoal black, lead white, chalk, and quartz.[1]

The tacking margins have been removed, but cusping is visible on the left and right, or the top and bottom of the first composition. The surface is abraded and small paint losses are scattered throughout. Pitting of the paint layer may be due to excessive heat during a lining or loss of large pigment particles. The underlying design shows through slightly in the sky due to abrasion and craquelure and the increased transparency of the upper paint layer, but this effect was minimized through inpainting in 1984 during the conservation treatment by Elizabeth Steele. The painting was relined, discolored varnish was removed, and the painting was restored by Stephen Pichetto in 1934. The varnish is clear.

[1] Elizabeth Steele, Analytical Report of 17 August 1984, NGA curatorial files.

Bibliography

1932: Frankfurter, Alfred M. "Eighteenth Century Venice in a New York Collection." The Fine Arts 19 (December 1932): 10, repro. p. 9.

1941: Preliminary Catalogue of Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1941: 93, no. 224, as View on the Cannareggio, Venice.

1942: Book of Illustrations. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1942: 244, repro. 124, as View on the Cannareggio, Venice.

1944: Frankfurter, Alfred M. The Kress Collection in the National Gallery. New York, 1944: 60, repro.

1944: Goering, Max. Francesco Guardi. Vienna, 1944: 51, fig. 98.

1945: Paintings and Sculpture from the Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1945 (reprinted 1947, 1949): 148, repro., as View on the Cannaregio, Venice.

1952: Berenson, Bernard. Italian Painters of the Renaissance. 3rd edition. Oxford, 1952: 34, pl. 102. (Reprinted 1980)

1952: Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds., Great Paintings from the National Gallery of Art. New York, 1952: 76, color repro., as View on the Cannaregio, Venice.

1952: Moschini, Vittorio. Francesco Guardi. Milan, 1952: 22, fig. 142.

1953: Ragghianti, Carlo. "Epiloghi guardeschi." Pisa. Scuola normale superiore. Annali: lettere, storia e filosofia, ser. 2, 22 (1953): 101.

1956: Moschini, Vittorio. Francesco Guardi. Milan, 1956: 34, fig. 144.

1959: Paintings and Sculpture from the Samuel H. Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1959: 259, repro., as View on the Cannaregio, Venice.

1965: Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 64, as View on the Cannaregio, Venice.

1966: Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds. A Pageant of Painting from the National Gallery of Art. 2 vols. New York, 1966: 2:334, color repro., as View on the Cannaregio, Venice.

1968: National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 56, repro., as View on the Cannaregio, Venice.

1972: Fredericksen, Burton B., and Federico Zeri. Census of Pre-Nineteenth Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections. Cambridge, Mass., 1972: 97.

1973: Morassi, Antonio. Guardi: Antonio e Francesco Guardi. 2 vols. Venice, 1973-1975: 1:249, 418, no. 577; 2:fig. 546.

1973: Shapley, Fern Rusk. Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools, XVI-XVIII Century. London, 1973: 171-172, fig. 329.

1975: European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 166, repro., as View on the Cannaregio, Venice.

1979: Shapley, Fern Rusk. Catalogue of the Italian Paintings. 2 vols. Washington, 1979: 1:236-237; 2:pl. 159, as View on the Cannaregio, Venice.

1985: European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 192, repro.

1994: The Glory of Venice. Exh. cat. Royal Academy of Arts, London; National Gallery of Art, Washington; Museo del Settecento Veneziano - Ca'Rezzonico, Venice; Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice, 1994-1995: no. 213, 459, cat. 212, color pl. 316..

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: 121-125, repro. 123.