Property from a European Private Collection
Michele Marieschi
A capriccio view of a church and an obelisk, with figures promenading
Lot Closed
July 7, 02:55 PM GMT
Estimate
20,000 - 30,000 GBP
Lot Details
Description
Property from a European Private Collection
Circle of Michele Marieschi
A capriccio view of a church and an obelisk, with figures promenading
oil on canvas
unframed: 82.8 x 111.7 cm.; 32⅝ x 44 in.
framed: 105.4 x 136.3 cm.; 41½ x 53⅝ in.
Thence by descent to his daughter, Mrs E.I.E. Folingsby Walker, and grandson, James Folliott Folingsby Walker;
By whom sold (‘The Property of the Late George Folliott’), London, Sotheby's, 14 May 1930, lot 56, for £260 to Colnaghi;
With P. & D. Colnaghi, London;
With Karl Haberstock, Berlin, acquired from the above, June 1938;
Recovered from the above, in Obserstdorf, by Allied Monuments Officers, 21 June 1947;
Central Collecting Point, Munich (inv. no. 43605);
Returned to Karl Haberstock, January 1950;
Private collection, England, by 1960;
With Arthur Tooth & Sons, London, by 1968;
Private collection, London, by 1995;
With Galerie Dominique Hurtebize, Cannes;
From whom acquired in 1999 by the present owner (all of the above as by Marieschi).
R. Pallucchini, ‘Dipinti veneziani a Chicago, Detroit, Toledo e Hartford’, in Arte Veneta, vol. I, no. 2, April–June 1947, p. 148 (the figures as by Francesco Guardi);
R. Pallucchini ed., La pittura veneziana del Settecento, Venice and Rome 1960, p. 195, reproduced fig. 498 (the figures as by Francesco Guardi);
R. Pallucchini, ‘A proposito della mostra bergamasca del Marieschi’, in Arte Veneta, vol. XX, 1966, p. 315;
A. Morassi, ‘Appunti su Michele Marieschi ‘alter ego’ del Canaletto’, in A. Kosegarten and P. Tigler, Festschrift Ulrich Middeldorf, Berlin 1968, p. 501 (the figures as by Antonio Guardi);
D. Succi, Catalogo ragionato dell' opera incisa, Turin 1987, p. 25, reproduced pp. 26–27, figs 14 and 15 (detail), and p. 90, under no. 23;
R. Toledano, Michele Marieschi l'opera completa, Milan 1988, p. 137, no. C.27.1 (the figures as by Antonio or Francesco Guardi);
D. Succi (ed.), Marieschi. Tra Canaletto e Guardi, exh. cat., Turin 1989, p. 198, reproduced p. 199, fig. 243 (as entirely by Marieschi, and datable to 1741–42);
M. Manzelli, Michele Marieschi: e il suo alter-ego Francesco Albotto, Venice 1991 (and 2nd ed., Venice 2002), p. 65, no. M.58.1, reproduced p. 66 (as entirely by Marieschi);
F. Zeri and K. Rozman, Maestri europei dalle collezioni Slovene, Lubiana 1993, p. 160, under no. 43;
R. Toledano, Michele Marieschi: catalogo ragionato, Milan 1995, p. 159, no. C.26a, reproduced (the figures as by Gian Antonio and Francesco Guardi, and datable to the late 1730s);
F. Pedrocco, Michele Marieschi. La vita, l'ambiente, l'opera, Milan 1999, pp. 362–63, no. 136, reproduced (the figures as by Antonio Guardi, and datable to the late 1730s);
H. Keßler and C. Trepesch, Karl Haberstock umstrittener Kunsthändler und Mäzen, Munich and Berlin 2008, p. 270, reproduced p. 300;
D. Succi, Michele Marieschi. Opera completa, Treviso 2016, pp. 392–94, no. 205, reproduced in colour p. 393, fig. 205 (as entirely by Marieschi, datable to 1740).
This capriccio view exists in two other versions with differences in the staffage and form of the dome: one – of slightly smaller dimensions – in a private collection, Slovenia;1 the other – of a much smaller size – in a private collection, Venice (35 x 53.5 cm.); the former painting has been attributed by Dario Succi (see Literature, 2016) to Apollonio Facchinetti, called Domenichini (1715–1757).
This painting has been extensively published, seemingly without question of the attribution to Marieschi, but with much debate over the authorship of the figures, which have variously been given to Francesco, Antonio and Gian Antonio Guardi, through comparison with the figures (particularly the elegantly-dressed lady with an attendant) in the painting of Il Canale Grande a Ca' Pesaro at the National Gallery, London.2 However, this figure ensemble is in fact taken from an etching by Marieschi, and the correspondence is due to the author of the National Gallery picture having used Marieschi's print as the basis for his composition.3
Note on Provenance
This painting was formerly in the collection of George Folliott, the second son of William Harwood Folliott, of Chester and Stapeley House, Nantwich, and his wife, Catherine, daughter and heiress of John Burcoe of Stapeley. George Folliott married Dorothea Elizabeth, daughter of W.J. Moore, of Dublin, and lived at the estate of Vicars Cross, on the outskirts of Chester. There he added a top-lit gallery in which to display his collection of almost forty Old Master Paintings, including Rembrandt's Portrait of a man with arms akimbo, which made the record price of over £20 million at auction in 2009, Holbein's Portrait of Lady Guilford, now in the St Louis Art Museum, Missouri, and Bernardo Bellotto's View of the Tiber with the Castel Sant Angelo, Rome, today in the Detroit Institute of Arts. When Folliott died at the age of fifty, his collection passed to his daughter who, along with her son, arranged the sale of the collection in 1930 (see Provenance).
3 https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1861-0608-485
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