Francesco Guardi

Chaloner Arcedeckne (1741-1809), Glevering Park, Suffolk, and 1 Grosvenor Sq., London, by whom presumably acquired in Venice in 1768;
By inheritance either through his daughter Frances Catherine (d. 1815), who married in 1810 Joshua Vanneck, later 2^nd Baron Huntingfield (1778-1844), or through his grand-daughter Louisa Arcedeckne (d. 1898), who married in 1839 Charles Andrew Vanneck (1818-1897), later 3^rd Baron Huntingfield, both of Heveningham Hall, Suffolk;
Sold by the latter in 1891, through Agnew's, to Sir Edward Guinness (1847-1927), 1^st Bt. and later 1^st Earl of Iveagh;
Thence by descent to his son Rupert Edward Cecil Lee Guinness, 2nd Earl of Iveagh (1874-1966), of Pyrford Court, Woking, Surrey;
Thence by descent to his first daughter, Honor Dorothy Mary (1909-1976), who married on 14 July 1933, Sir Henry ('Chips') Channon (1897-1958), of Kelvedon Hall, Essex;
Thence by descent to their son, (Henry) Paul Guinness Channon, later Baron Kelvedon (1935-2007);
Thence by inheritance.

 

London, Royal Academy of Arts, European Masters of the XVIII Century, 1954-55, no. 52 (exhibited with its pendant, no. 50);
(The reverse of the stretcher bears the label from the 1960 Winter exhibition at the Royal Academy. This must have been transposed in error to this work (after restoration?) as it actually belongs with the pendant);
London, Royal Academy of Arts, 15 September 1994 - 14 December 1994; Washington, National Gallery of Art, 29 January - 23 April 1995, The Glory of Venice: Art in the Eighteenth Century, no. 211;
On loan to the Iveagh Bequest, Kenwood House, 2008-present.

G.A. Simonson, Francesco Guardi 1712-1793, London 1904, p. 90, no. 105;
European Masters of the XVIII Century, exhibition catalogue, London 1954-55, p. 28, cat. no. 52;
F.J.B. Watson, in Arte Veneta, 1955, pp. 259-60 (as datable around 1760);
J. Byam Shaw, "Guardi at the Royal Academy", in The Burlington Magazine, vol. XCVII, no. 622, January 1955, p. 15, a detail reproduced fig. 17;
V. Moschini, Francesco Guardi, Milan 1956, p. 26, reproduced fig. 62;
A. Morassi, "Circa gli esordi del vedutismo di Francesco Guardi con qualche cenno sul Marieschi", in Studies in the History of Art dedicated to W.E. Suida, London 1959, p. 352 (as datable to the 1750s);
R. Pallucchini, Colecçao Calouste Gulbenkian: Francesco Guardi, Lisbon 1965, under cat. no. 231;
A. Morassi, Guardi. I dipinti, Venice 1973, vol. I, pp. 407-8, cat. no. 524, reproduced vol. II, fig. 510;
L. Rossi Bortolatto, L'opera completa di Francesco Guardi, Milan 1974, p. 108, no. 318;
D. Succi, "Gli inizzi Vedutistici di Francesco Guardi, con Cenni sui Capricci", in Guardi. Metamorfosi dell'immagine, exhibition catalogue, Castello di Gorizia 1987, p. 60;
A. Bettagno, Francesco Guardi. Vedute Capricci Feste, exhibition catalogue, Venice 1993, p. 52, under cat. no. 5;
A. Morassi, Guardi. I dipinti, 2nd ed., Venice 1993, vol. I, pp. 407-8, cat. no. 524, reproduced vol. II, fig. 510;
A. Morassi, Guardi. I disegni, 2nd ed., Venice 1993, p. 117, under cat. no. 223;
D. Succi, Francesco Guardi. Itinerario dell'avventura artistica, Milan 1993, p. 47;
M. Merling in The Glory of Venice: Art in the Eighteenth Century, exhibition catalogue, London and Washington 1994-95, p.458, cat. no. 211, reproduced p. 315;
F. Russell, "Guardi and the English Tourist," in The Burlington Magazine, vol. CXXXVIII, no. 114, January 1996, p. 10;
C. Beddington, Venice. Canaletto and his Rivals, exhibition catalogue, London and Washington 2010-11, p. 134.

The following condition report is provided by Sarah Walden, who is an external specialist and not an employee of Sotheby's. This painting has a firm lining, probably dating from the middle of the twentieth century when it was exhibited at the Royal Academy and when some cleaning and restoration also seems to have been done. The stretcher is strong and there are no structural problems or signs of flaking or raised paint. This includes the original seam running across the lower third of the canvas at the level of the arches of the bridge, where occasional small old damages were repaired in the distant past. A minute, fairly recent dent (about 1.5cm long) just above the skyline at centre right is secure. One other accident, apparently post-dating the lining, is a vertical scrape in the upper centre of the sky (about 8 cm high), which has been quite recently retouched. A narrow added strip along the base edge (about 1cm wide) is the width of the rebate of the frame and appears rather irregularly attached to the original. Scalloping can be seen along both side edges, but is harder to trace at the top and the base where the horizontal grain of the canvas is more closely woven. All the edges have accreted a certain number of old knocks and scuffs over time, long since retouched. Given the exceptional size of the painting and the hazards of travel early in its life, a certain amount of old damage is inevitable. A complex of old lines of restoration in the upper right area of the painting may stem from crumpling, probably in those early years. This mainly affects the upper right corner of the sky, just intruding down into the cornice of the building below on the right and more rarely further down the façade below. The left of the sky, on the other hand, is virtually clear of interruptions, with a fine sweep of largely intact paint, apart from old retouching along the edges. Lower down towards the skyline there are patches of discoloured surface strengthening on the left and widening towards the right to reinforce the warm glazing above the bridge. Guardi's delicate films of iridescent colour, floated across the surface, were inevitably more vulnerable than similar areas in Canaletto's work. Guardi was more interested in the transient movement of light, Canaletto in stability. Other quite widespread strengthening, now slightly darkened to the naked eye and also visible under ultra violet light, slants down over the old creases in the upper right corner into the centre in a few places. The lower part of the painting was unaffected by any damage far above. A few small old fillings have been retouched: near one or two of the chimneys on the skyline, two small retouched fillings in the central white sail, one in the rather messy lower part of the brown sail at far left, a small filling on the steps at the right, one or two in the foreground water at lower right and centre left, and occasionally elsewhere. Such minor old fillings have not always been retouched, for instance above the shed on the right, and the original seam has minor old damage un-restored across the central white sails. The richly impasted texture of the whites has generally survived rather well: the detail of the lighter oars, ropes, or the swirling gleam of the waves and highlights on the figures are often vividly intact. The beautifully preserved scene on the water beneath the bridge itself is an extraordinary display of exhilaratingly intricate brushwork. This area is in exceptionally good condition, with the luminous colour of the sunlit palaces on the far bank seen through the arch of the bridge perfectly intact, as are all the flickering movements of the gondolas in the water, with the darks as well preserved as the highlights. The important group of figures on the right, some seen from behind with swirling cloaks, are also largely beautifully intact, with the architectural detail strong up the right side of the painting. The more shadowy buildings on the far side of the water have naturally proved more vulnerable: the increasing transparency of the paint over time has led to some sinking, with fine detail sometimes blurred, and the characteristically subtle reflections from the water on the facades faint. There is a superficial splatter of little white splashes across the upper facades at centre left. Browns are especially delicate, and thin places show casual rough early wear in some lower parts of the painting, sometimes side by side with patches of well-preserved paint. The fine, dark linear details of the architecture and rigging are always the most fragile, and tend to be thin in the shadows, though along the roof tops much delicate detail is still crisp and unworn. Despite the vicissitudes of time and past interventions, the expressive impact of this view of the Rialto, the throbbing heart of Venice, remains immediate and powerful. This report was not done under laboratory conditions.
"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."

This remarkable painting is a masterpiece by Francesco Guardi, impressive not only for its imposing dimensions but also for its extraordinary pictorial quality. In terms of its importance within the oeuvre of the painter, it ranks alongside three other works, all painted at around the same time, which together constitute the pinnacle of Guardi's output as a painter of vedute; one of these was, until recently, in the same ownership (fig. 1), one is now destroyed and the other is in a private collection.¹

Guardi would never again paint on such a scale as this. Although he had previously painted two larger canvases (Waddesdon Manor), ² they were executed several years earlier in the artist's most youthful style, and are lacking the moody exuberance, the impressionistic handling and virtuoso brushwork so evident here. The painting recalls the early vedute of Canaletto which themselves are characterised by an intensity and a focus on atmosphere and passing weather conditions that disappears in his later, more schematic work. This painting and its pendant encapsulate all the very best qualities of this titan of vedutismo and they can, without any hesitancy, be considered amongst the greatest and most imposing of all Venetian vedute.

The painting has been sold only once in its rich history, when it was acquired through Agnew's in 1891 by Sir Edward Guinness, 1^st Bt., later 1^st Earl of Iveagh (1847-1927; fig. 13) from Charles Andrew Vanneck, 3^rd Lord Huntingfield (fig. 12). It was originally acquired, along with its pendant, by Chaloner Arcedeckne, a Grand Tourist who visited Venice in the summer of 1768. It then passed by marriage into the Vanneck family. It was exhibited in the great 1955 exhibition at the Royal Academy, European Masters from the 18^th Century, a groundbreaking show which included no fewer than forty-three works by Guardi and forty-one by Canaletto. It has hung in private ever since although for a short period recently it has been on loan to the Iveagh Bequest at Kenwood House.

Looking north, the Rialto Bridge is seen from the Fondamenta del Carbon. To the left, or west, the Riva del Vin terminates in the Palazzo dei Dieci Savi at the foot of the bridge. At the extreme right is the corner of the Gothic Palazzo Bembo; the eye is led up the Fondamenta del Carbon, over a small bridge that crosses the Rio di San. Salvatore, and straight into a colonnade under the imposing Palazzo Dolfin-Manin. Beyond the palazzo, leading up to Rialto, is the Riva del Ferro. The point from which the pendant is painted can just be made out under the arch of the bridge at the extreme left. The low white house seen there is probably the same that features in the extreme lower left corner of the pendant (see fig. 1).

The scene encapsulates the bustling nature of life on and around the busiest stretch of the Grand Canal. Rialto was the commercial (as well as the geographical) centre of Venice housing the largest markets in the city which were frequented by each and every citizen. On either side of the bridge, and on it, rows of shops sold luxury goods, both manufactured in the city itself and imported from the east. The principal markets were situated on the far quay; these were the Fabbriche Nuove and Fabbriche Vecchie, to be found just behind the Palazzo Carmelenghi, the upper storey of which can be seen protruding above the left slope of the bridge; the fabbriche themselves can be best seen in the pendant (see fig. 1) which represents the full façade of the Fabbriche Vecchie and the corner of the Fabbriche Nuove. Just behind them are the Pescharia (fish market) and the Erberia (greengrocers market). On the near (eastern) quay of the present work, and behind it, were the major banks, insurance companies and tax offices and here many of the richest bankers built their palazzi, right next to their businesses; the large palazzo just over the small bridge at the right of the composition, for example, was built for the Dolfin family of bankers to a design by Venice's leading Renaissance architect Jacopo Sansovino; more latterly, it housed the Venice branch of the Bank of Italy.

Guardi's panorama dramatically juxtaposes the rambling architecture of the retail district on the far western quay with the imposing palazzi on the near side. Here a parade of elegantly dressed gentlemen climb the steps of the bridge making their way to the financial district, two of them stopping to exchange words while another is helped down into a gondola ready to embark on some unknown business. Other gondole meander up and down and across the Canal ferrying the rich to and from their palazzi while on the far quay merchants unload wares to market from their barges. On the bridge itself some of the shops are opening up again while others remain closed. The scene is illuminated by a crisp afternoon light, the bright sun casting shadows from the west as it begins its descent to the horizon.

This is most likely Guardi's earliest depiction of this view of Rialto from the Fondamenta del Carbon. He revisited the composition in a slightly later canvas, of smaller dimensions (52 by 84 cm) in a work now in the Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon (fig. 2).³ The principle differences between the two paintings, other than the vastly disparate scales, is in the constricting of the Gulbenkian version at the left and its slight broadening to the right, to include the insignia of the shop-front, on which Guardi has signed his name.⁴ Other minor differences are visible in the colour scheme and figures: the flag on the top of the mast in the centre is red in the Iveagh painting but blue in the Gulbenkian version; the colour of the clothes of the figures lower right differ in each variant and the Iveagh painting has two extra figures halfway up the steps. The gondole and barche that populate the Grand Canal largely correspond, as does the staffage on each quay.

There is a preparatory sketch for the two gentlemen at the extreme lower right (who appear in both versions, standing opposite each other in conversation), which is recorded by Morassi in the collection of H.G. Sperling, New York (fig. 3).⁵ It depicts the man in profile to the right (wearing a blue coat in the painting) and three further sketches gradually elaborate the figure of the gentleman standing before him (to our left). These drawings demonstrate Guardi's working method in preparing to execute such an extraordinary painting: the figure studies are sketched freely in black chalk and were probably done from life; equally, the ambitious perspective and topographical accuracy of a fully fledged preparatory sketch for the composition (Paris, Louvre; fig. 4)⁶ suggest that it may have been drawn in situ, quite possibly with the aid of a 'camera ottica' as Gradenigo suggested (see below).

Morassi considered the Louvre drawing preparatory for the Gulbenkian painting and dated it to 1760-5. Conversely Bettagno⁷ considered it later in style and therefore probably a ricordo of the composition rather than a preparatory sketch. Except for the composition being slightly cropped on the left side, rather like the Gulbenkian painting, the sheet is almost identical to the Iveagh picture: the figures on the quayside and steps are exactly the same and the drawn composition ends in line with the man in profile, thus omitting the shop-front in the Gulbenkian painting. Contrary to Morassi's view, the fact that the Louvre drawing is closer to the Iveagh variant would suggest that it was done in preparation for it. It is entirely plausible that Guardi only extended the view of the left bank once he elaborated the drawing's composition in the painting. Although it has a marked fold down the middle, as if torn from the spine of a book or album, the Louvre sheet is still intact.

The dimensions of the Louvre drawing are the same as two sheets that, although now separated into two pieces, together form the preparatory drawing for the Iveagh pendant: the left part is in the Musée Bonnat, Bayonne, and the right is in the Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin (figs. 5 & 6).⁸  The fact that the Louvre drawing measures the same as the Bayonne and Berlin sheets put together would suggest that the two drawings were done at the same time, on pages from the same album, and this further underlines the fact that the Iveagh paintings were conceived as pendants. Both drawings have been dated to circa 1755-65 on stylistic grounds and this would concord well with the traditional dating for the Iveagh paintings to the 1760s.

The Iveagh Guardis make a neat and natural pair, one framed at the left by the side wall of the Palazzo Civran and the other, the present painting, framed at the right by the (now destroyed) Palazzo Bembo. Guardi seems to have considered the pairing a success as the later Gulbenkian canvas was also conceived as a pendant to a similar view of Rialto from the north (also 52 by 84cm; sold in the Greve sale, Berlin, Lepke, 12-13 October, 1909).  However, another version of the Iveagh pendant, of very similar dimensions to the Gulbenkian painting (53 by 85 cm; New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art)⁹ has been traditionally paired with A view of the church of Santa Maria della Salute.¹⁰ The Metropolitan canvas is identical to the Iveagh pendant in its arrangement of staffage but, like the Gulbenkian painting which is cropped at the left, so it is cropped at the right, omitting the Fabbriche Nuove.  Morassi considered the Metropolitan version to be a slightly later reduced replica of the Iveagh painting, describing it eloquently with words that might equally apply to the present work instead: "a beautiful painting for its vivid light, transparency, clarity of handling".¹¹

The topographical accuracy of the Bayonne and Berlin drawings led Morassi to assume that Guardi drew the scene in situ, closely observing the relationship between the various buildings. It is true of both the Louvre and Bayonne/Berlin drawings that the atmospheric light, created by the broadly applied wash, and the figures, formed with confident dabs of ink, recall Canaletto's early painting and drawing style and it is clear that Guardi was consciously imitating Canaletto's more youthful works.¹²  It is also true that Guardi's early 'Canalettian' phase is indebted to the elder painter's early pictures, themselves characterised by a concentration on atmosphere and ephemeral weather conditions, rather than to the more stilted and schematic style of Canaletto's output after his return to Venice from England in 1755, the moment Guardi was just starting out as a painter of vedute.

Although ultimately reliant in concept on Canaletto's early views, the Iveagh paintings speak of a wholly independent mind that, in all Guardi's earlier works, is lacking. They are thus amongst the first works in which the style that Guardi maintained for the best part of his career, is first established. In short, they are the first masterpieces in Guardi's mature style. However, the inspiration of Canaletto's early work is still acutely evident in both Iveagh views. The figures in the foreground of the present work are reminiscent of Canaletto's own and, like the side-wall in the foreground of its pendant, they serve as a framing device. Byam Shaw described the painting as "a beautiful picture, with some exquisitely painted figures of exceptional size on the quayside in the lower right corner near the Palazzo Manin"¹³ and Morassi also considered it an excellent example of Guardi's 'Canalettian phase': "opera di eccellente livello, ricca d'impasto cromatico, del periodo delle 'grandi macchiette' canalettiane".¹⁴

The Iveagh paintings are directly comparable with two other works of roughly the same dimensions and which probably date from a similar moment in the artist's career: A view of the Giudecca and the Zattere (formerly De Ganay collection and sold by Sotheby's in 1989; fig. 8)¹⁵ and A view of the Bacino di San Marco with the Molo and the Palazzo Ducale (formerly Musée des Beaux-Arts, Strasbourg, until destroyed by fire in August 1947; fig. 9).¹⁶ The De Ganay painting and its pendant formerly in Strasbourg were dated by Morassi to 1765-70, whilst the two Iveagh Guardis have long been dated to the first half of the 1760s, based on perceived documentary evidence (see below). Stylistically however, they too seem to belong to the second half of the decade.¹⁷

The earlier dating of the Iveagh Guardis (to 1760-65) has been lent support by the identification of the pendant with a view exhibited by Guardi under the colonnade in Piazza San Marco on 24th April 1764. That picture was shown alongside a View of Piazza San Marco and both were apparently commissioned by an unnamed English patron, according to the Venetian Senator and bibliophile Pietro Gradenigo (1695-1776):

Francesco Guardi [...] essendo molto riuscito per via della Camera Optica dipingere sopra due non picciole Tele, ordinate dà un Forestiere inglese, le vedute della Piazza S. Marco verso la Chiesa, e l'Orologio, e del Ponte di Rialto, e sinistre Fabbriche, verso Canareggio, oggi le rese esposte su laterali delle Procuratie Nove, mediante che si procacciò l'universale applauso".¹⁸

The fact that the canvases were met with great public acclaim indicates that they were unusually accomplished works by the artist. Gradenigo specifically describes the paintings as large ('non picciole' meaning 'not small') which would suggest that the Iveagh painting, rather than the Metropolitan or ex-Lepke versions (each c. 53 by 85 cm), was the one exhibited. Succi concurs with such an identification not only due to the dimensions but also to the fact that the rather distorted view may indeed be due to the artist's use of the 'camera ottica' device that Gradenigo cites. However, the matter is somewhat complicated by Gradenigo's description of the second work exhibited as a View of Piazza San Marco, which clearly does not accord with the present painting, but nor does it with the pendants of any of the other possible candidates (see discussion above).

The matter is complicated still further by the relatively recent emergence of new information on the pair's first owner, Chaloner Arcedeckne, who did not reach Venice until 20^th August 1768. If Arcedeckne acquired or commissioned both paintings at this time the pendant is most unlikely to be identifiable with the picture mentioned by Gradenigo in 1764. A painting of this stature (second in size only to the Waddesdon Guardis) would only have been painted to commission and would thus not have remained in Guardi's hands for nearly four years. It is of course not impossible that Arcedeckne commissioned the work in 1764 from England (after the end of the Seven Years War in 1763) and that his journey to Venice four years later is unconnected to the purchase of the Guardis which would have already been settled four years previously.

However, throughout their scholarly history, the earlier dating of the two canvases to 1764 has never been fully endorsed and, were it not for the Gradenigo text, modern scholarly opinion would probably place them nearer 1768 than 1764. Each scholar arguing for the earlier dating has had to hypothesise on the speed of Guardi's early development. A dating of 1768, on the other hand, argues for Guardi's evolution as a vedutista happening at a slower, more plausible pace than previously considered, his progression from Canaletto imitator to virtuoso vedutista culminating late, rather than early, in the 1760s.

In recent decades scholars have gradually reviewed the chronology of Guardi's early view paintings. Goering¹⁹ believed he began in 1745 or before, while Morassi²⁰ considered his earliest views to be a group dating from 1745-50. James Byam-Shaw²¹ believed Guardi to have turned to view painting only after 1755 and later Dennis Mahon²² pointed out that one of the pictures in the collection of the Duke of Buccleuch (which was one of the key paintings in Morassi's first group) included the bulbous campanile of San Bartolommeo in Rialto which was only completed on 1^st April 1754. As Michael Levy later stated, "such a date would accord much better as the likely period for the whole group's execution."²³

The Buccleuch Guardis are the key works in this early group given that they can now be securely dated. The eight views (six of which remain in the collection) were almost certainly commissioned by John Montagu, Lord Brudenell, later Marquess of Monthermer (1735-70) and passed to the Dukes of Buccleuch by inheritance. Brudenell's Guardis were undoubtedly acquired during his long sojourn in Venice from 21^st September 1758 to 24^th February 1760 and all of them must therefore date to this time, later than proposed by Goering and Morassi and more in line with Byam-Shaw, Mahon and, later, Dario Succi. Given that, by 1758, Guardi's style had thus not evolved nearly as far as Morassi and others thought, a dating of the Iveagh Guardis, which in their impressionistic handling are far removed from the Buccleuch paintings, to 1768 is far easier to argue for, at least on stylistic grounds.

 

Provenance

Along with its pendant (fig. 1) this monumental canvas was probably acquired from the artist in Venice during the summer of 1768 by Chaloner Arcedeckne (c. 1743-1809) and has changed hands only once in the 243 years since, when it was sold in 1891, by private negotiation, to Sir Edward Guinness (1847-1927), 1^st Bt., later 1st Earl of Iveagh. The paintings remained at the Arcedeckne family seat of Glevering Park, Suffolk (fig. 10), for only a relatively short length of time, entering by inheritance the collection of the Vanneck family at Heveningham Hall (fig. 11), in  1810 or 1839. Both Chaloner Arcedeckne's daughter and grand-daughter married Vannecks, his daughter Frances Catherine (d. 1815) marrying Joshua Vanneck, later 2^nd Baron Huntingfield (1778-1844) in 1810, and his granddaughter Louisa (d. 1898) marrying Charles Andrew Vanneck (1818-97), later 3^rd Baron Huntingfield, in 1839, and it is not known through which of the two marriages the Guardis passed to Heveningham.²⁴

The house at Glevering would, by the time of Louisa's marriage in 1839, be unrecognisable from that which Chaloner inherited from his father Andrew. Chaloner first had the house enlarged in 1792-3 by John White at which time Davy described it as a 'very elegant and convenient country mansion'.²⁵ The house was further enlarged by Decimus Burton, the architect responsible for the archway to Buckingham Palace on Constitution Hill, in 1834-5.

Chaloner Arcedeckne arrived in Venice on 20^th August 1768 and left on 7^th September for Florence, a short stay by Grand Tour standards. It seems likely that he acquired or commissioned both paintings at this time, although if this is true the long-established theory that its pendant is identifiable with the picture mentioned by Gradenigo in 1764 must be wrong. Arcedeckne acquired his fortune from his father, Andrew, and with it, the family's extensive estates in Jamaica which consisted predominantly of sugar plantations. He was a Member of Parliament from 1780-86, the Member for Wallingford from 1780-84 and subsequently for Westbury (1784-86). He departed for his Grand Tour at the age of about twenty-five, and was in Rome in February 1768. There he is recorded in the company of John Bohum, with whom he travelled to Venice in August of that year. He left Venice for Florence on 7 September and the last record of his Italian sojourn is on 22^nd October when he attended the investiture of Sir Horace Mann as Knight of the Bath in Florence.  Arcedeckne was one of a handful of English patrons of Guardi's early view paintings. The earliest seems to have been Sir Brook Bridges 3^rd Bt. (1733-81) who is recorded in Padua in 1757 in the company of, amongst others, Consul Joseph Smith, he who was so important to the career of Canaletto. Bridges' five Guardis must have been commissioned at this time in Venice, a view supported by the date of 1758 on one of them, the Festa of Giovedì Grasso in the Piazza San Marco.

Also in Venice at this time was John Montagu, Lord Brudenell; he was established in Venice by 21^st September 1758 and left on 24^th February 1760. Although Brudenell the patron is perhaps best known for the set of thirty-eight views of towns in Italy and southern France that he commissioned from Antonio Joli, probably in 1757,²⁶ he almost certainly acquired at this time the eight Guardis that passed by inheritance into the collection of the Duke of Buccleuch (only six of which now remain in that collection). Brudenell was an avid collector of Venetian vedute and indeed amongst a group of four works now generally attributed to Francesco Albotto is a view of the Rialto with the Palazzo Carmelenghi, a view taken from exactly the same spot as Guardi adopted for the pendant to the present work; in both cases the idea probably spawned from a Canaletto composition engraved by Visentini.

Pevsner described Heveningham Hall (fig. 11) as "without question the grandest Georgian mansion of Suffolk."²⁷ The exterior was designed by Sir Robert Taylor in around 1778 for Sir Gerard Vanneck, a merchant of Dutch descent (originally 'van Neck'); the interior, meanwhile, was entrusted to James Wyatt who finished the elegant internal decoration by 1784 and the centrepiece of which is the entrance hall which must be, in terms of conception, enrichment and, in particular, the painted decoration, one of the grandest of all 18^th century interiors. Wyatt's extensive refined painted panelling nullified the requirement for wall hangings and as a result the collection of pictures at Heveningham has, surprisingly for such a large house, always remained relatively small.  The gardens were laid out by Capability Brown in 1781-2.

Sir Edward Guinness, who acquired this painting through Agnew's along with its pendant in 1891, amassed one of the most extraordinary art collections of his day. By virtue of the fortune he made from floating two-thirds of the family firm, at the time the largest brewery in the world, on the London Stock Exchange he was able to retire in 1886 at the age of forty. Like his father, Benjamin, and elder brother, Arthur, he was a generous philanthropist, contributing nearly £1million to slum clearance and public housing. He was created Baron Iveagh in 1891, Viscount Iveagh fourteen years later in 1905 and finally Earl of Iveagh in 1919. The art collection that he amassed comprised some of the greatest Old Master paintings in the country, including Rembrandt's 1661 Self-portrait (fig. 14) and Johannes Vermeer's Guitar Player (fig. 15)²⁸ of c. 1670-2 which, like the Guardis, he purchased through Agnews, in 1889. In 1925 Iveagh bought Kenwood House on Hampstead Heath from the Mansfield family. On his death in 1927 he left the house to the nation, along with the paintings that it housed and the collection remains intact there to this day.

1.  The latter was formerly in the collection of the Marquis De Ganay, sold Monaco, Sotheby's, 1 December 1989, lot 72; see also Morassi, op. cit., 1973, vol. I, p. 427, cat. no. 625, reproduced vol. II, fig. 592. The other (destroyed work) was formerly in Strasbourg, Musée des Beaux-Arts, until destroyed by fire in 1947; see also Morassi, ibid., vol. I, p. 284, cat. no. 391, reproduced vol. II, fig. 414a).
2.  The Bacino di San Marco with the Molo and the Palazzo Ducale and the Bacino di San Marco with San Giorgio Maggiore and the Salute each measure 284 by 424 cm.; see A. Morassi, under Literature, 1973, vol. I, p. 384, cat. no. 390 and p. 389, cat. no. 419, reproduced vol. II, figs. 414 and 441.
3.  Morassi, Idem., vol. I, p. 408, cat. no. 525, reproduced vol. II, fig. 509; reproduced in colour in Succi, under Literature, p. 133, fig. 133.
4.  Where, for the Iveagh pair, Guradi chose to sign the View of Rialto from the north, with the smaller pair he chose to sign the View of Rialto from the South (the Gulbenkian painting).
5.  A. Morassi, under Literature, 1975, pp. 117-8, cat. no. 223, reproduced fig. 225.
6.  Idem, p. 143, cat. no. 364, reproduced fig. 364.
7.  A. Bettagno, under Literature, pp. 52-3, cat. no. 5.
8.  Musée Bonnat, Bayonne, inv. 1241; 258 by 371 mm.; Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin, inv. 4206; 264 by 389 mm., both ink and sepia wash on paper. See Morassi, 1975, pp. 144-45, cat. nos. 371 and 276, reproduced figs. 373 and 374.
9.  Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, inv. 71.119; oil on canvas, signed lower left: Franco De' Guardi, 53.3 by 85.7 cm.; Morassi, 1973, vol. I, p. 413, cat. no. 554, reproduced vol. II, fig. 530.
10.  Inv. 71.120, oil on canvas, 53.3 by 85.7 cm; Idem., p. 398, cat. No. 465, reproduced vol. II, fig. 471.
11.  "un dipinto stupendo per la luce vivida, trasparente, per nitidezza di fattura"; Idem, vol. I, p. 233.
12.  The passageway between the Palazzo dei Camerlenghi and the Fabbriche Nuove in the Berlin sheet, for example, is drawn with a similar technique to that found in Canaletto's graphic oeuvre.
13.  Byam Shaw, under literature, p. 15.
14.  Morassi, 1973, p. 408.
15.  Venice, a view of the Giudecca and the Zattere; oil on canvas, 120 by 205 cm.; sold, Monaco, Sotheby's, 1 December 1989, lot 72. See also Morassi, 1973, vol. I, p. 427, cat. no. 625, reproduced vol. II, fig. 592.
16.  Oil on canvas, 120 by 205 cm.; see Morassi, 1973,  vol. I, p. 284, cat. no. 391, reproduced vol. II, fig. 414a.
17.  The pendant to the present work, View of the Rialto Bridge with the Palazzo dei Camerlenghi, is the only signed painting of these four.
18.  L. Livan, Notizie d'arte tratte dai Notatori e dagli Annali del N.H. Pietro Gradenigo, Venice 1942, p. 106. Translation: "Francesco Guardi [...]well able through his use of the Camera Optica to paint two canvases not of small dimensions, commissioned by an English foreigner, showing views of Piazza S. Marco towards the church, and the clock, and the Rialto bridge, with the Fabbriche, towards Canareggio, today exhibited them on the walls of the Procuratie Nuove, amid universal applause".
19.  M. Goering, Francesco Guardi, Vienna 1944, p. 23.
20.  A. Morassi, "Circa gli esordi del vedutismo di Francesco Guardi", in Studies in the History of Art dedicated to W.A. Suida, London 1959, pp. 338-52.
21.  J. Byam Shaw, The Drawings of Francesco Guardi, London 1951, p. 18.
22.  D. Mahon, in Problemi Guardeschi, Venice 1967, p. 124.
23.  M. Levey, National Gallery catalogues, the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Italian Schools, London 1971, pp. 135-36.
24. The 2nd Baron outlived his son by Frances Catherine Arcedeckne, his title thus passing to his younger son by his second marriage to Lucy Anne Blois (d. 1889). Louisa Arcedeckne, only daughter of Chaloner's son Andrew, was thus unrelated to the 3rd Baron, whom she married in 1839.
25.  E. Sandon, Suffolk Houses; A study of domestic architecture, Woodbridge 1977, p. 123.
26.  Sixteen are at Beaulieu and eight at Bowhill; the remainder were sold from the Beaulieu collection in 1958 and 1973.
27.  N. Pevsner, Suffolk, Harmondsworth 1974, p. 269.
28.  See E. Buijsen et al., Rembrandt by himself, exhibition catalogue, London and The Hague 1999-2000, pp. 220-221, cat. no. 83, reproduced with detail, and frontispiece; and W. Liedtke, Vermeer. The Complete Paintings, Bruges/ New York/ London 2008, pp. 172-4, cat. no. 35, reproduced.