Sanford Robinson Gifford 1823-1880

Richard Butler, New York  (acquired as a commission
directly from the artist )
Private collection, New York (since circa 1900)
By descent in the family to the present owners 

Ila Weiss, Sanford Robinson Gifford, New York, 1977, pp. 315-316, 456 and illustrated as IX B 2 (as an engraving)
Kevin J. Avery and Franklin Kelly, Hudson River School Visions:  The Landscapes of Sanford R. Gifford, New York, 2003, p. 251 

Gifford's second trip to Europe in the late 1860s inspired him to paint thirty-two works with Venetian subjects.  The present painting is one of five which he considered “chief” pictures, that is, works which he intended to submit to the National Academy for exhibition.  San Giorgio was commissioned by Richard Butler, a wealthy and well-connected New York businessman, who was one of the artist's most devoted lifetime patrons and a co-founder of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  Gifford is known to have painted three smaller studies of this work as well.  In the 2004 exhibition of the artist’s work at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, this work was referred to in the catalogue, although its whereabouts were unknown.

Originally, the artist was not enthusiastic about his visit to Venice, but once he arrived in the historic city, he was smitten by its charms.  A planned visit of four or five days turned into six weeks.   And, on the eve of his departure, he wrote “Tomorrow I am to be dragged reluctantly away....I did not know till now, when I am about leaving Venice forever, how strong a hold this dear old, magnificent, dilapidated, poverty-stricken city has taken on my affections.” (Weiss, op. cit., p. 314).  When he wrote of his impressions of the place, he may well have been commenting upon the present painting, “The richly colored sails of the Venetian and Chioggian fishing boats have interested me a good deal from the striking contrast of color they afford with the sky and water” (Weiss, ibid, p. 315).