Luca Carlevarijs

Private collection, England; 
Anonymous sale, New York, Christie's, 29 January 1998, lot 30;
There purchased by the present collector.

The painting is slightly brighter than it appears in the catalogue illustration. For a high resolution digital image, please refer to the online catalogue at Sothebys.com or contact a member of the Old Master Paintings department. The following condition report has been provided by Simon Parkes of Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc. 502 East 74th St. New York, NY 212-734-3920, simonparkes@msn.com, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. This work has been lined with a synthetic adhesive. The paint layer is stable, and the lining is good. The painting is recently restored; however, it is hard to identify under ultraviolet light some areas that seem to have been retouched. The varnish is slightly opaque in some areas. It seems that the cleaning of the work has been a little uneven and there appear to be remnants of old varnish in the clouds in the center. This may also be an intentional tone. The condition of the figures in the foreground and the architecture seems to be very fresh. Like so many pictures from this period, it is the sky that has been over-cleaned, and where retouches have been necessary. There is very slight thinness to the rigging in the vessels in the harbor on the left. There is some restoration to eliminate some of the dark red ground color throughout the sky. The only area in the sky that appears to have a slightly larger restoration is immediately above the turret in the center. However, for a painting from this period of this scale, the condition is good.
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

Carlevarijs was born in Udine, the son of a painter, sculptor and architect. After being orphaned as a young boy, he moved in 1679 to Venice with his sister. While scholars have presumed a visit to Rome in his youth, this is undocumented and it is far more likely that he remained in Venice and its environs. Nevertheless, his early works do show some knowledge of the Bamboccianti, perhaps through the art of Pieter Mulier and Johann Anton Eismann, both of whom were in Venice during the last quarter of the 17th century. Carlevarijs began his career emulating Northern artists by executing capricci of Mediterranean harbors such as this one, only later turning his hand to painting topographical views of Venice for Grand Tourists.

Though he has long been considered to be the founder of the Venetian school of view painting, without whom the vedute of Canaletto, Bellotto or Guardi would have been inconceivable, Carlevarijs was not just a view painter; he is a far more versatile artist than he is perhaps given credit for today. His forays into naval battle compositions and even the rare biblical scene (see for example, A. Rizzi, Luca Carlevarijs, Venice 1967, figs. 10, 19-20) demonstrate his varying capabilities and wide range as an artist. Carlevarijs, however, was not just a painter, for he was consulted as an architect in 1712 and was portrayed as a mathematician in Bartolomeo Nazzari’s portrait in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, and in the 1724 engraving by Giovanni Antonio Faldoni after it.¹ In May 1703 he produced a book with a series of 104 engravings of buildings and views of Venice entitled Le Fabriche e Vedute di Venetia disegnate, poste in prospettiva et intagliate, thus amply demonstrating his abilities as a vedutista by this early date.

This large and beautifully lit port scene can be dated to circa 1714 on the basis of comparison with a group of early capricci of a similar type, particularly the Capriccio View of a Port (private collection, Rome; see A. Rizzi, Luca Carlevarijs, Venice 1967, p. 94, reproduced, plate 71).²  The form of the signature in both this work and in that Capriccio are identical, though the latter picture is dated 1714, which may suggest a similar dating for this canvas. As is apparent in many of his early works, Carlevarijs fuses an imaginary seaport with elements taken directly from identifiable locations. Here, a pair of Corinthian columns topped by brown leaves recall those of the Temple of Castor and Pollux in the Roman Forum. Similarly inspired are the ruins in the right background, which derive from the Baths of Caracalla in Rome. The overall compositional type follows the example of other works of the period. Carlevarijs subtly builds up a combination of architectural elements on one side, while on the other features the calm water and a low horizon line, thus drawing the viewers gaze outward. Carlevarijs had established his preference for this general compositional format nearly a decade earlier, when in 1706 he executed a pair of similarly realized compositions.³ Interestingly, one of the pictures from that pair (location unknown), is described by Succi as bearing the same "L.C" signature as this capriccio. 

1.  The engraving is inscribed: Lucas Carlevaris Pictor Venetus et Mathematica cultor egregius; see D. Succi, in I. Reale and D. Succi, Luca Carlevarijs e la veduta veneziana del Settecento, exhibition catalogue, Padua, Palazzo della Ragione, September 25 – December 26, 1994, p. 301, cat. no. 108, reproduced.
2. see D. Succi, Capricci Veneziani del Settecento, Gorizia 1988, p. 398, cat. no.1 .
3. Accademia Carrara, Bergamo, inv. no. 6 [925])
4. see Succi 1988, p. 398.