Giovanni Antonio Canal, called Canaletto

Sale, London, Sotheby's, 2 July 1984, lot 120

W. G. Constable, Canaletto, second edition revised by J. G. Links and reissued, Oxford 1989, vol. I, p. l, pl. 239, fig. 603*, vol. II, p. 744, no. 603*;
J. G. Links, A supplement to W.G. Constable's Canaletto, Giovanni Antonio Canal, 1697-1768, London 1998, p. 50, no. 603*, reproduced pl. 239;

Hinged at the top in three places and two hinges from a previous mounting still attached on the verso. A fold in the middle with surface dirt along the vertical line . A few brown stains scattered around the sheet at the top, in the middle and at the bottom. The ink and black chalk is fresh. Sold in a carved, gilded, wooden frame.
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Bozena Anna Kowalczyk has suggested a dating for the present drawing of circa 1763.  We are indebted to her for the following information: she proposes that the architecture seen in the drawing, although lit from the right, can be related to Canaletto's painting of the same period, The Fondamenta Nuove with the Campanile of S. Francesco della Vigna and Sta Maria del Pianto and the Arsenale, now in an English private collection (fig.1).¹  A section of the convent of S. Francesco della Vigna, and the wall of the Arsenal are also the subjects of a drawing formerly in the Corniani-Algarotti collection, now in the Accademia, Venice.²  There Canaletto, following his normal method, portrays the buildings closer to him in the lower section of the sheet, and at the top depicts the more distant ones, the whole drawn with the help of a camera obscura.  He includes color notations but not locations.  In the present sheet, quickly sketched from life, Canaletto seems less precise, drawing at the top the section of the view closer to his vantage point, and below this the distant view of the Arsenal.

Kowalczyk notes that the autograph inscription 'Taca' found twice on this drawing is Venetian dialect for attacca,³ a word used to indicate consecutive views, often found in Canaletto's sketchbook in the Accademia.⁴  The present drawing is partly indented, an interesting feature that can also be found in some of the pages of the Accademia sketchbook. 

She also noted that the rowing boat, which is not a Venetian type, appears in a number of Canaletto's paintings.  A very similar craft, with a man seated in the same position, can be found in The Entrance to the Canal Grande looking west with the Church of the Salute, in the Museum of Fine Art, Houston, Texas.⁵  Furthermore Kowalczyk suggests that the chalk sketch of the male figure, seen upside down and from behind, could be a first idea for the foreground figure to the left in the painting of the Fondamenta Nuove mentioned above.  

In the present sheet it appears that Canaletto first made the whole preliminary sketch in black chalk as a pro memoriam, and later reinforced the lines and the hatching with pen and ink, leaving only the sketch of a man at the top left in black chalk.  This figure was quickly sketched like the rest from life.  Another lively touch is added by the man wearing a cap seated in a little boat.  Both of these figures are indented, as are some lines in the architecture.  The fold in the middle of the page seems clearly to predate the actual drawing and probably indicates it was the middle page in a sketchbook.

Stylistically this sheet of studies can be compared with a number of drawings formerly in the Corniani-Algarotti nucleus, which, as suggested by Kowalczyk, must originally have been part of the artist's personal collection, probably remaining in his studio at his death in 1768.⁶  They represent a wide time-span of the artist's career, from the 1720s up to 1766, and to Kowalczyk this '...is the most representative repertory of the different types of sketch that Canaletto was in the habit of making in preparation for his paintings, finished drawings and etchings.' ⁷  This group, once larger, consisted of about thirty-four sheets from different sketchbooks and albums when it was documented in Trieste in 1870.  Later, with a few exceptions, the drawings were purchased by two collectors in Venice: Alfredo Viggiano (1884-1948) and Italico Brass Sr. (1870-1943) and they have since been dispersed among various important public and private collections in Europe and the United States.

Although from different periods of Canaletto's career, these surviving sketches show his talent for recording with immediacy places and images which would serve him for use in his paintings.  The present vigorous sheet of quick studies can be compared stylistically with two others (formerly owned by Alfredo Viggiano), both capricci, depicting a church and a wooden bridge, one of which is now in the Accademia.⁸  Like the present drawing, these two views are executed with vigorous pen and ink lines, reinforced by equally strong and loosely hatched pen and ink shadows.

We are grateful to Bozena Anna Kowalczyk and Charles Beddington, both of whom have confirmed the attribution of this drawing to Canaletto, having seen it in the original.

1.  Constable/Links, op. cit., 1989, vol. II, p. 348, no. 321, reproduced vol. I, pl. 60

2.  Ibid., vol. II, p. 619, no. 847, reproduced vol. I, pl. 160

3.  The word 'Taca' is misread as 'Tana' in Links's cataloguing of the drawing, see Constable/Links, op. cit., 1989, no.603*

4.  G. Nepi Scirè, Canaletto's sketchbook, Padua 1997; see for instance pp. 53-57 

5.  Constable/Links, op. cit., 1989, vol. II, pp. 265-66, no. 166, reproduced vol. I, pl. 37

6.  Bozena Anna Kowalczyk, 'The seven drawings by Canaletto from the Corniani-Algarotti collection, Venice', A Private Collection of Venetian Old Master Drawings, exhib. cat., Paris, Salon du Dessin, Damiano Lapiccirella, 2010 

7.  Ibid.

8.  Constable/Links, op. cit., 1989, vol. II,  pp. 641-2; two of the Viggiano drawings illustrated, vol. I, pl. 160, no. 848 and pl. 223, no. 848 II