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

Purchased by a U.S. private collector prior to 1917 and thence by descent in the family.

It has been suggested - though it is not a unanimously held view - that Vanvitelli is to be considered the precursor of the most famous vedutisti in Venice and that his topographical paintings of the city, of which there are a relatively small number compared to his views of Rome or Naples, established a tradition of view painting that was to become very popular in the ensuing centuries. Following the 1967 exhibition of Venetian views, in which eleven works by Vanvitelli featured, it was noted by Giuliano Briganti that the genre had begun with Vanvitelli, whose original viewpoints and compositions would later inspire Canaletto’s own.¹ A near-contemporary of the artist, the writer, collector and dealer, Pierre Jean Mariette (1694-1774) went so far as to describe Canaletto’s style of painting as being ‘in the manner of Vanvitelli’.² The most obvious example to which Vanvitelli must have turned was Luca Carlevarijs (1663-1730), whose views of the city and the lagoon that surrounds it, differ considerably from Vanvitelli’s own in that the city’s architecture merely acts as a backdrop for the figures and boats in the foreground; the true subject of Carlevarijs' vedute. Although the two artists' approaches to view painting are entirely different, their paintings have often been confused: a case in point is the painting today in the Brachetti Peretti collection in Rome, which was for a long time attributed to Carlevarijs (until as recently as 1977).³

The exact date of Vanvitelli’s Venetian sojourn is not known, but he travelled through Northern Italy on two different occasions; first in 1690 and then in 1694; either of these could have included a stay in Venice although the latter seems more likely. On both occasions he travelled to numerous cities - Florence, Bologna, Verona, Venice and possibly Ferrara amongst them - spending a few months in each place, drawing and painting views there. One of the few certain dates for Vanvitelli’s Venetian views is 1697, the year in which he signs and dates a view of the Molo today in the Museo del Prado, Madrid, thus providing a terminus ante quem for his presence in Venice.⁴ The last of Vanvitelli’s dated views of Venice is from 1721 (private collection, Prague), and both this and another of 1717 (location unknown) are clearly inscribed stating that they were executed in Rome, probably from drawings done by the artist in situ many years earlier.⁵

This particular view of the mouth of the Grand Canal, with the Punta della Dogana and the church of Santa Maria della Salute behind, was to become one of the most frequently-portrayed views of Venice, and was later painted by Canaletto and Guardi numerous times. The Punta della Dogana, or ‘Dogana de Mar’, situated at the entrance to the Grand Canal and acting as customs house for all boats entering Venice, was designed by the architect Giuseppe Benoni and erected between 1667 and 1682. Vanvitelli’s viewpoint is taken from the Bacino, as if the artist were standing on a boat, and this allows us to see the water from the lagoon, forking either side of the Punta della Dogana. Vanvitelli manages to achieve greater panoramic effect by painting the view on a stretched rectangular canvas (a long and thin format he particularly favoured), by dotting the fore- and middle-ground with boats in order to increase spatial depth, and by widening the ‘lens’ of the viewpoint to incorporate elements at the extreme left and right of his composition. In this way our eye is not only led straight into the picture but also to its extremes, maintaining our interest even in the far distance where Vanvitelli paints architectural details with astonishing accuracy and precision; a technical detail Canaletto would also excel at. The site was painted by Vanvitelli on at least six different occasions, two examples of which are dated (1710 and 1721), and he changed the staffage and slightly altered the exact viewpoint each time.⁶ Fewer buildings are sometimes included on the island of the Giudecca, visible at the extreme left of the composition, and sometimes Vanvitelli would include the Libreria, Piazzetta and Palazzo Ducale on the extreme right of the painting. Here he has shown the church of the Redentore at the far left and on the right are the Fontegheto della Farina, the fish market, the Granai Pubblici and the bridge of the Pescheria, but the view does not go on to include the Library or the Piazzetta. The painting that comes closest to the present work, both in format and in the buildings represented, is the canvas at Petworth House in Sussex, also of similar dimensions.⁷ The Petworth painting was executed as a pendant to a view of the Darsena in Naples which is monogrammed and dated 1705;⁸ a date that seems plausible not only for its pendant showing the Bacino di San Marco but for the present view also. Although three different drawings exist for the church of the Salute, no preparatory sketches relating to this composition are known, though it should be assumed that Vanvitelli must have produced them.⁹

1  “… non è difficile rilevare come [Gaspar van Wittel] inaugurò virtualmente la storia della veduta veneziana, stabilendone la impostazione visiva e individuando, per primo, punti di vista che il Canaletto rese famosi” (it is not hard to notice that [Gaspar van Wittel] virtually inaugurated the history of Venetian views, establishing compositions and finding, him before all others, viewpoints which Canaletto later made famous”; G. Briganti, cited by L. Laureati, “Gaspar van Wittel e l’origine del genere “veduta” nella pittura veneziana del Settecento”, in Gaspare Vanvitelli e le origini del vedutismo, exhibition catalogue, Rome, Chiostro del Bramante,  October 26, 2002 – February 2, 2003, p. 47.
2  “... il a travaillé dans la manière de Van Vytel”; P.J. Mariette, Abécédario, 1851-60, vol. I, p. 298.
3  See G. Briganti, Gaspar van Wittel, L. Laureati & L. Trezzani ed., Milan 1996, p. 242, cat. no. 293, reproduced in colour on p. 243.
4  Briganti, op. cit., p. 241, cat. no. 287, reproduced.
5  The Bacino di San Marco looking towards the Grand Canal (signed and dated: Veneti G.V.W. Roma 1721) and The Molo, Piazzetta and Palazzo Ducale (signed and dated: Gasparo Van Witel Roma 1717); Briganti, ibid., p. 245, cat. no. 302, reproduced, and p. 241, cat. no. 289, reproduced on p. 242 respectively.
6  Idem, pp. 244-45, cat. nos. 298-303, most reproduced.
7  Petworth House, inv. 224; oil on canvas, 51 by 108 cm.; Idem, p. 245, cat. no. 303, reproduced on p. 246.
8  Petworth House, inv. 221; idem, p. 262, cat. no. 350, reproduced.
9  The drawings of the Salute (Biblioteca Nazionale Vittorio Emanuele, Rome) are in pen and ink on squared paper, indicating that their design was intended to be transferred for use in a final painting; see Briganti, ibid., cat. nos. D337, D341 and D343, all reproduced.