Past Exhibition

Venetian Drawings from American Collections

The image shows a busy waterway filled with various boats, some with figures on board. The boats are adorned with flags. In the background, there is a cityscape with a church tower and buildings. The brushstrokes are detailed, and the color palette consists mainly of brown and blue tones. The scene depicts a historic setting, with distant structures and a slightly overcast sky.
Canaletto, Ascension Day Festival at Venice, 1765/1766, pen and brown ink with gray wash over traces of graphite, tip of the brush with black wash, heightened with a few touches of white gouache (laid on thick eighteenth-century paper), Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1963.15.5

Details

  • Dates

    -

  • Locations

    Main Floor, Galleries 68, 69, 70, 71 (3,000+ sq. ft.)
The image shows a busy waterway filled with various boats, some with figures on board. The boats are adorned with flags. In the background, there is a cityscape with a church tower and buildings. The brushstrokes are detailed, and the color palette consists mainly of brown and blue tones. The scene depicts a historic setting, with distant structures and a slightly overcast sky.
Canaletto, Ascension Day Festival at Venice, 1765/1766, pen and brown ink with gray wash over traces of graphite, tip of the brush with black wash, heightened with a few touches of white gouache (laid on thick eighteenth-century paper), Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1963.15.5

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

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