Francesco Guardi Venice 1712 - 1793

Villa Algarotti, Treviso;
Baron Edmond de Rothschild (1845-1934), Paris;
By descent to his eldest son Baron James de Rothschild (1878-1957), London;
By inheritance to his widow Dorothy 'Baroness' de Rothschild (1895-1988), London, by whom sold, London, Sotheby’s, 19 April 1972, lot 17, for £32,000 to W.H. Patterson;
Anonymous sale (“The Property of a Gentleman”), London, Christie's, 9 July 1993, lot 95, where acquired by the present collector.

G. Fiocco, in U. Thieme and F. Becker, Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler, vol. XV, Leipzig, 1922, p. 168;
G. Fiocco, Francesco Guardi, Florence 1923, pp. 68-9, no. 38, reproduced plate XXVIII;
G. Fiocco, “Il Ridotto e il Parlatorio del Museo Correr”, in Dedalo, January 1926, pp. 544-46;
M. Goering, Francesco Guardi, Vienna 1944, pp. 26 and 78, reproduced plate 33;
Tiepolo et Guardi, exhibition catalogue, Paris, Galerie Cailleux, November 1952, under cat. no. 117, p. 72;
A. Morassi, “Novità su Francesco Guardi”, in Arte Veneta, 1959-60, p. 167;
T. Pignatti, Il Museo Correr di Venezia, dipinti del XVII e XVIII secolo, Venice 1960, p. 97 (as ‘piuttosto vicino al Marcuola’);
A. Morassi, Guardi. I dipinti, Venice 1973, vol. I, pp. 163 and 352, cat. no. 234, reproduced in colour (detail) p. 143, plate XXXIV, and reproduced in vol. II, as fig. 257 (image transposed with fig. 256);
L. Rossi Bortolatto, L’opera completa di Francesco Guardi, Milan 1974, p. 92, cat. no. 57, reproduced (erroneously) as no. 56;
A. Morassi, Guardi. I dipinti, Venice 1993, vol. I, pp. 163 and 352, cat. no. 234, reproduced in colour (detail) p. 143, plate XXXIV, and reproduced in vol. II, as fig. 257 (image transposed with fig. 256);
D. Succi, Francesco Guardi. Itinerario dell’avventura artistica, Milan 1993, p. 226, reproduced in colour on p. 227 (as by Gianantonio Guardi and datable to circa 1750);
M. Merling, in J. Martineau & A. Robison, The Glory of Venice. Art in the Eighteenth Century, exhibition catalogue, London, Royal Academy of Arts, 19 September - 14 December 1994; Washington, National Gallery of Art, 29 January - 23 April 1995, p. 455, under cat. no. 202 (listed under Francesco although "it is reasonable to conclude that these works are the production of the workshop run jointly by Antonio and Francesco").

This lively interior with figures dressed in carnival costume is a fine example of Francesco Guardi's skill as a narrative painter. Better known to us today as a view-painter, this canvas nevertheless demonstrates Guardi's extraordinary flair in telling a story. His figures move about in a dimly-lit interior where the wall-panelling catches flickers of light, as do the figures’ coats and gowns. Guardi’s colour palette is subdued and he effectively portrays the different textures of the figures’ costumes, from the intricate lace of their veils to the gold thread on their richly-embroidered coats. The episode playing out before our eyes is ambiguous and Guardi delights in leading us into his theatrical world only to leave us to decipher and interpret the gestures between his actors. The masked woman in the centre is clearly of a high social order given her elegant costume and the ermine muff resting on the arm of the attendant behind her. The man on the left, to whom she turns, appears to have won her favour but his pose and use of a walking-stick would suggest that he is elderly and that his victory may have more to do with the size of his purse. The man wearing a green coat seen striding off to the right, looking over his shoulder in a brusque manner, has probably been spurned in favour of the other man. Guardi suggests that the men may have competed through gambling - the winner being on the left, the loser on the right - and playing cards are visibly strewn at their feet.

The scene takes place in the salone centrale or sala grande of the ridotto in Palazzo Dandolo at San Moisè, before its remodelling by Bernardino Maccaruzzi in 1768. The ridotti were public spaces, usually located close to theatres, where the wealthy upper classes would mingle with the populace and engage in these locations’ principal activity – gambling. Since most visitors wore masks at the ridotto, it became the obvious location for conspiratorial plots and illicit amorous encounters, thus fuelling the imagination of artists and writers alike in 18th-century Venice: Francesco Guardi, Pietro Longhi and Giambattista Tiepolo all painted numerous scenes of the ridotti and the writings of Giacomo Casanova (1725-1798) and Carlo Goldoni (1707-1793) were both appreciated and inspired by these surroundings. Indeed Casanova praised the beautiful women to be found there, the ridotto proving itself to be an ideal location for his conquests, and Goldoni not only found eager listeners for his plays in the ridotto but he also set many of his scenes there (the climax of Goldoni's comedy Donne Gelose, written in 1752-3, takes place in the ridotto). For reasons of conspiracy the twenty ridotti scattered throughout Venice were closed through a decree of the Maggior Consiglio on the orders of the Doge in 1774, though they were re-opened shortly thereafter as state-run casinos to be administered by the Serenissima. The ridotto at Palazzo Dandolo was opened by Marco Dandolo in his residence at San Moisè in 1638 and it soon became a famous meeting-spot for both Venetian and foreign nobility. It was amongst the ridotti that were closed by the Signoria on account of fortunes being squandered through gambling.

The subject of the ridotto is rare in Guardi's oeuvre. Another painting of this subject, formerly with Cailleux in Paris (1952) and subequently in an Italian private collection, was considered by Morassi to be an autograph variant and is often confused with the present work in the literature, despite the arrangement of figures being notably different.¹  Both compositions, though different in numerous details, are thought to have been inspired by Guardi’s large painting of the ridotto today in Ca’ Rezzonico, Venice (see fig. 1), which, with its pendant showing Il Parlatorio delle Monache, was considered by Morassi to be “tra le opere più celebri della pittura veneziana del Settecento”.²  All three pictures are dated by Morassi to the 1750s, that is prior to the development of Guardi’s better-known career as a vedutista, and they show the artist’s verve in painting genre scenes. Guardi’s Ca’ Rezzonico painting served as a source of inspiration not only for his own variants but also for the scenes of the ridotto for which Pietro Longhi became famous; a fine example of the latter being the painting sold recently at Sotheby’s, New York, 27 January 2005, lot 191. The more elongated shape of the Ca’ Rezzonico picture has here been rejected in favour of a slightly squarer format. The resulting composition is more compact with the viewer being brought up closer to the figures and thus entering into the psychological interplay of those represented. Although Guardi has taken the same viewpoint as in the Ca’ Rezzonico painting and has borrowed certain specific elements – such as the figures at the gaming table in the left background, the masked male figure leaning over in the left foreground, or the masked male figure in a green coat turning back just right of centre – the atmosphere in each picture is quite different and Guardi’s skill as a genre painter is nowhere better exemplified than here.

A pen and wash drawing in the Art Institute of Chicago, variously attributed to Gianantonio (whose name appears in an inscription on the verso) and to Francesco, is undeniably connected to the Ca’ Rezzonico painting.³  Succi recently published the drawing with an attribution to Francesco but he also published the present painting, together with the Ca’ Rezzonico pair and other related works, as being by Gianantonio; an attribution that seems difficult to sustain on stylistic or technical grounds. Both Morassi and Pedrocco attribute the Ca' Rezzonico painting to Francesco and it was exhibited as such in The Glory of Venice show in London and Washington.⁴

This painting is probably that recorded in an unpublished inventory of the collection of Baron Edmond de Rothschild at 41 Rue Faubourg St. Honoré in Paris (now the American Embassy). Although given no title, it was one of only two Guardis in the collection, and hung in the Library, where it was valued at £3,000. Baron Edmond was an avid collector of early Italian and Netherlandish paintings and his collection, inherited by his eldest son James, included Jan van Eyck's Virgin and Child with Saints and a Donor in the Frick Collection, New York. Baron Edmond also collected a number of 18th-century French and Italian pictures, including works by Canaletto, Watteau, Boucher and Fragonard.

1. See Morassi, under Literature, cat. no. 235, reproduced as fig. 256; and also J. Cailleux, “Les Guardi et Pietro Longhi”, in Problemi Guardeschi, Venice 1967, p. 53.
2. "amongst the most famous works in 18th-century Venetian painting"; Morassi, op. cit., p. 161. For the Ca’ Rezzonico paintings (108 by 208 cm.) see Morassi, ibid., cat. no. 233, reproduced fig. 253 (ridotto) and cat. no. 232, reproduced fig. 252 (parlatorio).
3. The drawing is published as a work by Gianantonio in A. Morassi, Guardi. I disegni, Venice 1993, pp. 89-90, cat. no. 56, reproduced fig. 50; and as a work by Francesco in Succi, see Literature, p. 225, reproduced fig. 251.
4. See M. Merling, in J. Martineau & A. Robison, The Glory of Venice. Art in the Eighteenth Century, exhibition catalogue, London, Royal Academy of Arts, 19 September - 14 December 1994; Washington, National Gallery of Art, 29 January - 23 April 1995, pp. 455-6, cat. no. 202, reproduced in colour p. 306.