Federico del Campo

Cooling Gallery, London
Private Collection, Toronto
Acquired from the above by the present owner circa 1936

The following condition report was kindly provided by Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc.: This work is in wonderful condition. The canvas is unlined. The paint layer is stable. There is one small retouch on the left in the sky above the corner of the nearest palazzo. There are no retouches in the remainder of the sky or in the canal. The architecture also seems to be completely unretouched. The work should be hung in its current state.
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The combination of its classical sites, picturesque vistas, and golden atmosphere has attracted innumerable visitors to Italy on Grand Tours since the eighteenth century, with Venice always a particularly alluring stop.  Even the Peruvian Federico del Campo was drawn to Italy at a young age, and he quickly became one of the most successful artists of his time to specialize in Venetian vedute. His extraordinary skill as a colorist and his sharp attention to architectural detail ensured that throughout the 1880s and 1890s, del Campo’s views were among the most-prized souvenirs of travelers.

Del Campo's compositions are immediately identifiable through their technical precision, lively brushwork, and luminous palette. The present work’s sweeping, sun-drenched panorama opens onto the Grand Canal, the dome of Santa Maria della Salute visible in the distance. In the foreground, behind a group of vivid blue braccole, or mooring poles, rises the grand, Neo Gothic, Palazzo Cavalli-Franchetti, set between the Palazzo Barbaro and a private garden. Del Campo animates this otherwise serene scene with a few gondoliers and boats making their way up and down the river, an elegant pair of figures seated on a barge at the far right, and a fashionable woman at left shielding herself from the midday sun with a pink parasol as she watches over a group of boys playing in a small boat.