FRANCESCO GUARDI | A View of la Porta del Dolo on the Brenta Canal

Probably acquired by Abdy in Paris (according to a label on the reverse);
With Agnew's, London;
Mabel G. Deakin (1892-1977);
Sold by her descendants, London, Sotheby's, 6 July 2016, lot 34 (for £269,000);
There acquired. 

A. Morassi, Guardi, Antonio e Francesco Guardi, vol. I, Milan 1973, p. 436, cat. no. 676, reproduced vol. II, fig. 634;
A. Morassi, Guardi I dipinti, Milan 1993, vol. I, pp. 254, 436, cat. no. 676, reproduced vol. II, fig. 634.

The following condition report has been provided by Simon Parkes of Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc. 502 East 74th St. New York, NY 212-734-3920, simonparkes@msn.com, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. This work on a heavy panel is in lovely condition. The panel is very slightly curved from left to right. There appears to be an original join in the wood running down the left side of the composition, but this has never broken or become unstable. The paint layer is in beautiful state. There is no sign of the dark red ground color or any abrasion throughout the architecture or figures. Under ultraviolet light, one can faintly see a few small retouches in the upper center of the sky and in a few other spots in the sky, which mainly address some pentimenti around the profiles of the buildings. There are also some retouches in the darkest colors in the lower left and lower right corners.
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

Guardi painted this view on at least six occasions, two in a horizontal format and four vertical, and so it was clearly of some importance to him. It represents the busy Brenta canal, traversed by a narrow arched bridge, running through the town of Dolo. For visitors to Venice coming from the north down the villa-lined Brenta canal, Dolo was probably their last stopping point on the terra firma before their arrival at La Serenissima. Guardi also painted several panoramas of the town of Dolo and the Brenta, the best of which is that recorded in the Worms collection, Paris.¹ The view has been identified as the Porta del Dolo thanks to an inscription, which Morassi suspects is by the artist himself, on a drawing of the subject in the Museo Correr in Venice (fig. 1): ‘veduta della Porta del Dolo per andar a Padova’.² The drawing corresponds precisely to the horizontal painting of the subject in a private collection, London.³  The other horizontal painted version is recorded by Morassi as in the collection of E. Assheton-Bennett, while the three other vertical versions are those in the Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon; the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; and a painting formerly in the collection of Baron Henri de Rothschild, Paris.⁴ The present version, comfortably the largest of the six, is particularly animated, with a large number of rapidly-painted figures on and around the bridge and at work on a barge beneath it. It is unusually colourful too, Guardi adding accents of red, yellow and blue to the staffage and, though lit from the same angle as the other versions, the lighting is rather more dramatic here, resulting in a greater contrast between sky and foreground.

1. Morassi 1993, vol. I, cat. no. 669, reproduced vol. II, fig. 625.
2. A. Morassi, Guardi. Tutti I disegni, Venice 1975, p. 152, cat. 415, reproduced fig. 418.
3. Morassi 1993, vol. I, p. 435, cat. no. 672, reproduced vol. II, fig. 629.
4. Respectively Morassi 1993, vol. I, cat. nos 673, 674, 675, 677, reproduced vol. II, figs. 630–33. The latter was sold London, Christie’s, 8 December 2006, lot 135.