Francesco Guardi Venice 1712 - 1793

Grandi-Baslini collection, Milan (according to the Kende sale catalogue);
A. Kende sale, Vienna, 14-16 October 1930, lots 221 and 222;
Fanto collection, circa 1932;
Nagler collection, Vienna;
Dr. Gustav Arens, by whom acquired before 1936;
Thence by descent to his daughter Ann A. Unger;
Thence sold ("Property of the Ann A. Unger Trust"), New York, Sotheby's, 6 October 1995, lot 185, for $156,500.

A. Morassi, Guardi. Antonio e Francesco Guardi, Venice 1973, vol. I, p. 476, cat. no. 896, reproduced vol. II, fig. 806 (the former only);
L. Rossi Bortolatto, L'opera completa di Francesco Guardi, Milan 1975, p. 111, cat. no. 373, reproduced p. 110 (the former only);
A. Morassi, Guardi. I dipinti, Venice 1993, vol. I, p. 476, cat. no. 896, reproduced vol. II, fig. 806 (the former only).

During the third quarter of the 18th Century Guardi specialised in painting charming small-scale capricci of which this pair, datable to the 1760s, are a fine example. Guardi's pleasure in painting pure landscape, keeping any figural or architectural elements to a minimum, and his convincing portrayal of cloud formations render these little capricci particularly atmospheric. Their iconography is particularly interesting: in the first capriccio Guardi has included a rather unusual palm tree whilst in the second a mountain range, perhaps inspired by Alessandro Magnasco's pre-Alpine landscapes, giving both views an exoticism which anticipates the romantic interest in the "pittoresco" which was to characterise landscape painting in the later 18th and early 19th centuries. Morassi only ever published the former capriccio in his monographs, considering the man on horseback particularly worthy of note. The view, though unpublished by Morassi, relates closely to the right hand side of Guardi's larger horizontal canvas (46 by 66 cm.) in the National Museum, Stockholm (Morassi, see Literature, 1993, vol. I, cat. no. 999, reproduced vol. II, fig. 883). This is by no means a singular example of Guardi repeating parts of his compositions and adapting them to smaller or different formats: compare, for example, the painting formerly with Agnew's, London, and that with Leonard Koetser, London (Morassi, op. cit., vol. I, cat. nos. 947 and 936, reproduced vol. II, figs. 838 and 842 respectively). Though it is conceivable that Guardi produced more than one painted version at a time, in this particular case he is likely to have had recourse to his preparatory drawing for the Stockholm picture (today in the Boymans van Beuningen Museum, Rotterdam; see A. Morassi, Guardi. I disegni, Venice 1993, cat. no. 649, reproduced fig. 622) to produce a painted variant of the composition.