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View full screen - View 1 of Lot 204. Venice, a view of the Palazzo Ducale from the Bacino, with the Bucintoro returning to the Molo on Ascension Day.

The Property of a Distinguished Collector

English Follower of Canaletto

Venice, a view of the Palazzo Ducale from the Bacino, with the Bucintoro returning to the Molo on Ascension Day

Lot Closed

December 5, 03:35 PM GMT

Estimate

30,000 - 50,000 GBP

Lot Details

Description

The Property of a Distinguished Collector

English Follower of Canaletto

Venice, a view of the Palazzo Ducale from the Bacino, with the Bucintoro returning to the Molo on Ascension Day


oil on canvas

unframed: 76.2 x 127 cm.; 30 x 50 in.

framed: 95.5 x 146.2 cm.; 37 5/8 x 57 5/8 in.

Anonymous sale, London, Sotheby's, 13 July 1994, lot 118 (as William James);
Where acquired by the present owner.

This composition is based on the design by Canaletto employed in the painting formerly with Bellesi, London, in 1940,1 and in an autograph version in the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya, Barcelona (inv. no. 77, on deposit from the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza).2 A number of other studio versions also exist.3


The present work emulates the position and formation of the clouds in the Bellesi picture and much of the staffage and the gondolas are also replicated; but the composition as a whole here feels more spacious, with the canal slightly widened and more water visible between the vessels.


http://catalogo.fondazionezeri.unibo.it/scheda/opera/71706/

2 https://www.museunacional.cat/en/colleccio/return-il-bucintoro-ascension-day/giovanni-antonio-canal-canaletto/212851-000

3 See W.G. Constable, Canaletto. Giovanni Antonio Canal 1697–1768, J.G. Links (ed.), London 1976, vol. II, pp. 361–62, under cat. no. 340.