Bernardo Bellotto

Private collection, Florence;
Private collection, New York;
With Moretti Fine Art, London;
From whom acquired in 2011.

Munich, Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Alte Pinakothek, Canaletto, Bernardo Bellotto paints Europe, 17 October 2014 - 19 January 2015, no. 64.

S. Kozakiewicz, Bernardo Bellotto, London 1972, vol. I, p. 138, vol. II, p. 283, cat. no. 356, reproduced p. 282;
E. Camesasca, L'opera completa del Bellotto, Milan 1974, p. 110, cat. no. 201, reproduced;
A. Rizzi, Bernardo Bellotto: Dresda, Vienna, Monaco (1747-1766), Venice 1996, p. 161, cat. no. 140, reproduced;
E.P. Bowron in The Burlington Magazine, 140, 1998, review of Bernardo Bellotto: Dresda, Vienna, Monaco (1747-1766), p. 48;
W. Schmidt, Bernardo Bellotto genannt Canaletto in Pirna und auf der Festung Königstein, Pirna 2000, p. 166, reproduced p. 167;
A. Schumacher (ed.), Canaletto, Bernardo Bellotto paints Europe, exhibition catalogue, Munich 2014, p. 278, cat. no. 64, reproduced in color.

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 canvas is unlined, and the reverse of the original canvas has been treated with an adhesive to address any immediate weakness. The paint layer is in lovely condition. The surface is clean and shows almost no restorations to the naked eye or under ultraviolet light, except in the lower sky on the right side where a few spots have been added. The legs of the male figure in the foreground show darkly under ultraviolet light, suggesting that this part of the figure has received retouches possibly as it had been previously over-painted (see catalog note). The remainder of the picture is clearly in remarkable condition. The work should be hung as is.
"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 arresting capriccio was painted by the Venetian Bernardo Bellotto, who with his uncle Antonio Canaletto set new standards in view painting. The peripatetic Bellotto travelled through much of Italy and Europe, and was feted in many of the courts of northern Europe. Training in his uncle's studio, and assisting with many of his great works from the 1740s, Bellotto was recognized as a rare talent even in his teenage years. By the time of his trip to Florence and Rome in 1742, Bellotto had already developed his own style, which, while much indebted to Canaletto's idiom, stands out for its increased precision in the description of architecture, its greater emphasis on atmosphere, and its cooler palette.

By the time the present work was painted in around 1765, Bellotto had left his native Venice and his uncle's studio, and had already spent some eleven years in Dresden (1747-58), where he was the highest paid artist at the Saxon court and eventually appointed court painter. Between 1758 and 1766 Bellotto moved between the cities of Vienna, Munich and was once again in Dresden.

Though Bellotto had painted capricci earlier in his career, such as the Architectural Capricci with Roman Motifs in the Galleria Nazionale in Parma, in which he made use of drawings from his trip to Rome in the mid-1740s, imaginary landscapes are relatively rare in his extensive oeuvre.¹ We can assume that the present capriccio is also based on drawings from different cities he had visited: the church to the left is reminiscent both of the Frauenkirche in Dresden and the Karlskirche in Vienna - as well as the basilica of the Salute in Venice. The church in the distance to the right resembles the Marienkirche in Pirna, while the tall edifice in the center recalls Sonnenstein Castle.

Recent cleaning and conservation has restored the painting to its original size and shape, removing the clumsy additions along all four edges (fig. 1), which extended the canvas to 65 by 82 cm. The quality and the freshness of the paint surface, previously obscured by dirt and a discolored varnish, are now discernible once more, as are the rich contrasts between the pinks and blues. The figure of the fisherman, which had previously been painted over, also emerged.

Bellotto used a similar format in his capriccio formerly with the Galerie Sanct Lucas, Vienna (49.5 by 80.5 cm.), as well as the work in the Terruzzi collection (46.5 by 78 cm.).² The capriccio in the Museo de Arte in Bilbao (fig. 2) also compresses the buildings and the narrative in much the same way as the present work. Another painting of comparable dimensions in the Fine Arts Gallery, San Diego, uses the same device of a partially-described tree to the left of the design.³ 

The attribution has been endorsed by Dottoressa Bozena Anna Kowalczyk.

1. See Kozakiewicz, under Literature, pp. 95-99, cat. nos 126-129.
2. Ibid., p. 284, cat. no. 358, reproduced p. 285; A. Scarpa (ed.), Da Canaletto a Tiepolo, Milan 2008, p. 256, reproduced in color plate 19.
3. Kozakiewicz, op. cit., pp. 284-85, cat. no. 359, reproduced p. 285.