Gaspar van Wittel, called Vanvitelli Amersfoort 1652/3 - 1736 Rome

It is not known exactly when Vanvitelli visited Venice for the first time, though if one is to believe Pascoli he is thought to have passed through it on his way to Rome in 1674. His first dated Venetian work is The Molo, Piazzetta and Palazzo Ducale in the Museo del Prado, Madrid (1697), though it must be assumed he travelled to the city prior to that date. About forty paintings and drawings of Venice have survived, variously dated between 1697 and 1721, and judging from the delicacy in execution of the present pair it seems plausible to date these canvases to Vanvitelli's maturity, that is to the 1710s (after his return to Rome).

Vanvitelli painted the islands of San Giorgio, San Michele, and Murano on other occasions, though he never adopted such a wide viewpoint as in the present pair and the shipping vessels are painted in much greater detail here than in all the other variants. Five paintings of the view of San Giorgio are listed by Briganti, though these are all of more rectangular format than the present more elongated version (G. Briganti, Gaspar van Wittel, Milan 1996, pp. 248-50, cat. nos. 314-8). The view of the island is taken from the Bacino di San Marco and Vanvitelli has included the island of the Giudecca to the right of it, to a greater degree than in all the other known versions, and the campanile of the church of San Giovanni Battista is clearly visible. A drawing by Vanvitelli of the island of San Giorgio, in grey ink and white heightening on blue paper, is in the Palazzo Reale, Caserta (inv. 1620; reproduced in Briganti, op. cit., p. 324, cat. no. D103, or more clearly reproduced in C. Marinelli, L'esercizio del disegno. I Vanvitelli, exhibition catalogue, Caserta, Palazzo Reale, 14 December 1991 - 14 February 1992, cat. no. 80, p. 68). As Briganti points out, this sketch is unlikely to have served as a preparatory drawing for a painting of the subject and, given its sketchy technique, it was more probably produced as an independent work. The view of the islands of San Michele and Murano is rarer still, for only three other variants are known (Briganti, ibid., p. 250, cat. nos. 319-21, all reproduced), and none shows San Michele in its entirety as it does here. This view appears to be taken from the tip of the Fondamenta Nuove though no preparatory or related drawing by Vanvitelli has survived.

The elongated format of these two canvases indicate that the paintings were probably commissioned with a specific function and location in mind; to serve as overdoors (or sovrapporte). Only three other examples are known: an idealised view formerly on the art market in Rome (Briganti, ibid., cat. no. 445, reproduced p. 292) and a pair showing two different views of the Abbazia di San Nilo (Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica, Rome; see L. Trezzani, in Gaspare Vanvitelli e le origini del vedutismo, exh. cat., Rome, Chiostro del Bramante, 26 October 2002 - 2 February 2003, pp. 160-3, cat. nos. 43 and 44, both reproduced in colour). The detailed rendering of both the architecture and shipping vessels would appear to contradict the probable high placement of these canvases as overdoors, but it might be argued that Vanvitelli excelled himself for the important patron who commissioned them. Though not unique examples in Vanvitelli's oeuvre, overdoors are extremely rare amongst his known works and almost none are recorded by contemporaries. An inventory of the paintings inherited from Filippo III Colonna and sold by Duke Giulio Lante della Rovere in 1841 to his brother-in-law, prince Giulio Cesare Rospigliosi, records a pair of overdoors by Vanvitelli of unspecified subject measuring four palmi wide ("23, 28. Di quattro per traverso a guisa di sopra porta col compagno 28 vedute con figure di Gaspare Vanvitelli", ASV Rospigliosi, 961 int. 488, cited in A. Negro, La Collezione Rospigliosi, Rome 1999, p. 338). That pair have been tentatively identified with those of the Abbazia di San Nilo (see Trezzani, op. cit., under cat. no. 45) though their size (30 by 137 cm. each) exceeds even an approximate measurement of four palmi in width, and a more plausible solution might be their identification with the present pair.