* Giovan Battista Cimaroli Salò, near Brescia 1687-1771 Venice

This unpublished pair of paintings represents two different aspects of the working methods of Cimaroli, one being a version of a picture in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, which, although in poor condition, is generally regarded as the work of Canaletto, the second painting being an original and unique composition, possibly also showing the small town of Dolo on the Brenta Canal outside Venice. 

Cimaroli has long been better known as a painter of imaginary landscapes in the Veneto, often with villages, farm buildings or classical ruins, than as a painter of actual views. Although a not insubstantial body of work in the genre of view painting is now known, very little of it has been published. The only attempt at a catalogue of Cimaroli’s work, Federica Spadotto’s ‘Un artista dimenticato: Giovan Battista Cimaroli’ in Saggi e memorie di storia dell’arte, 23, 2000, pp. 129-87, lists only seventy-one paintings, including a set of shaped views of Padua, Dolo, Muranzan and Mira (nos. 68-71) which has since been identified as the work of Gianfrancesco Costa (by D. Succi in the catalogue of the exhibition da canaletto a zuccarelli: il paesaggio veneto del Settecento, Villa Manin di Passariano, 2003, pp. 96-101); conversely she describes as ‘lost’ three oval imaginary landscapes sold by Consul Smith to King George III which remain in the collection of Her Majesty the Queen at Buckingham Palace (M. Levey, The Later Italian Pictures in the Collection of Her Majesty the Queen, 2^nd. ed., Cambridge, 1991, nos. 459-61, pls. 104-6). Despite its limitations, it is symptomatic of the current state of Cimaroli studies that Spadotto includes only six views, all of Venice itself, including a pair of views of the Molo de-accessioned by the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco at Butterfields, San Francisco, June 9, 1999, lots 8003-4, and four paintings which were in Semenzato sales in Venice in the late 1980s or early 1990s: a view of the Molo and the Doge’s Palace, and three views of the Piazza San Marco (the best known of which with the architecture invariably but incorrectly given to Canaletto). 

The re-emergence of the present Dolo on the Brenta is thus of particular interest. That it has remained unpublished is less surprising given that two other versions also certainly by Cimaroli have been overlooked in the recent literature on the artist. Both are described by W. G. Constable, Canaletto, London, 1962 (and subsequent editions, edited by J. G. Links), II, under no. 371. The better known of these, on a similar scale to these paintings but in a slightly different format (31 3/4 x 38 in., 80.5 x 96.5 cm.), formerly in the collection of Walter Dunkels, England, was sold by Colnaghi, London (Pictures from the Grand Tour, 1978, no. 28, as Canaletto) and is currently at the Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart. Although this has been widely published as the work of Canaletto, it seemed out of place when included in the Canaletto exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, in 1989-90 (no. 56) and it is surprising that it has only been published as by Cimaroli by B. A. Kowalczyk (in the catalogue of the exhibition Bernardo Bellotto, Venice and Houston, 2001, p. 80). In that painting the buildings are very similar to those in the present work, even down to the red cloth hanging from the window on the left and the striped awning over the window on the right. The clouds and boats differ, as do the figures and figure groups, but these occupy almost exactly the same positions in both paintings.

The other version, which is vertical and larger (52 x 49 in., 132 x 124.4 cm.), which was with Gooden and Fox, London, in 1952, was included (as no. 25) in Richard Nagy’s exhibition The Inspired Spirit: Three Centuries of European Painting at Martyn Cook Antiques, Paddington, Australia, 1986, and is now in an Australian private collection. That painting corresponds much more closely with the present work, even in most of the boats and the figures, although the man with the horse in the left foreground is replaced by a gentleman riding a horse and two more peasants, and there is an extra turkey at bottom left and a peasant sitting on the wall at the right.  

The composition enjoyed unusual success for a view on the Venetian mainland, being painted by Bernardo Bellotto in c. 1743 (private collection, UK; no. 12 in the 2001 Bellotto exhibition cited above) and by Francesco Guardi in no fewer than three late works (formerly? Worms Collection, Paris; Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon; and Detroit Institute of Arts; A. Morassi, Guardi. L’opera completa di Antonio e Francesco Guardi, Venice, 1973, I, nos. 669-71; II, figs. 625-7).

It has always been assumed that Cimaroli, Bellotto and Guardi were all following a prototype by Canaletto, a painting in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (Constable, op. cit., I, pl. 68; II, no. 371). A significant problem with this idea is that the painting is in such poor condition that it is impossible to be sure that it is by Canaletto (rather than yet another version by Cimaroli). Another is that there is no evidence that Canaletto visited the Venetian mainland before the early 1740s, while the style of the Ashmolean painting (as far as it can be judged) has suggested to all who have written on the subject a significantly earlier date. All Cimaroli’s versions – as well as Bellotto’s – are likely to date from the 1740s. The fact that such a successful and influential composition is unlikely to have been the creation of either Cimaroli or the young Bellotto is, however, a strong argument in its favour. How Cimaroli could have known Canaletto’s composition remains to be explained. The dating of all these views of Dolo is confused in the literature by misunderstandings of the topographical evidence; this will be clarified by Andria Derstine in an article due to be published in The Burlington Magazine later this year.

This is the only version (still) accompanied by a pendant. The pendant View on the Brenta, which shows in the centre a burchiello, the distinctive Brenta barge, has all the characteristics of an actual view, possibly showing a different part of Dolo itself. It is likely that more of Cimaroli’s paintings of this type show real locations. A pair of paintings in a Monte Carlo private collection included in the exhibitions Luca Carlevarijs e la veduta veneziana del Settecento, Padua, 1994, nos. 92-3, and Immagini della Brenta: Ville Venete e scene di vita sulla Riviera nel ’700 veneziano, Mira, 1996, nos. 5-6, as ‘Veduta ideata con una sagra’ and ‘Veduta ideata con una processione’ have been identified by the present writer and B. A. Kowalczyk as the ‘View of a Town on the Venetian Mainland’ and ‘View of Mira’ which were at Castle Howard until sold at Sotheby’s, London, in May 1922, having been presumably acquired by Henry Howard, 4^th Earl of Carlisle on or following his Grand Tour of 1738-9 (see the catalogue of the 2001 Bellotto exhibition cited above, p. 13, note 8).

We are grateful to Charles Beddington for the above catalogue entry.