Johann Richter

In the collection of the present owner's family in Edinburgh since the late 19th century.

"The following condition report has been provided by Sarah Walden, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. This painting has a firm old lining and stretcher, holding vertical craquelure from previous rolling. Regularly spaced repairs along the right of the top edge from slight crushing of the rolled canvas are reduced gradually to nothing towards the left side. There has been some overheating in lining, although the figures are largely finely preserved – with a few small broken blisters in the yellow drapery. The sky has widespread strengthening across thinner areas. There are no accidental damages, except one fairly small retouched knock by the upper stretcher bar to the left, and the retouchings along the upper edge mentioned above. The base edge also has a band of retouching, with a little along the stretcher bar line to the left. The light tone, close to Carlevaris, remains evenly preserved, as is the architecture and the figures generally. 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."

Hitherto unrecorded and unpublished this is one of Giovanni Richter's most impressive views and certainly one of his largest. Richter is documented in Venice from circa 1710 and while references to him are scant, one of the few mentions of him comes in the form of a letter, dated 25 December 1717, from Antonio Balestra, in which he describes Richter's paintings as: '... quadretti... fatti con tutto amore... professando particolar propensione alla sua compiutezza.'

The present view is clearly inspired and influenced by the work of Richter's presumed master, Luca Carlevarijs, both in composition and execution. The view, looking west along the Molo towards the Biblioteca Marciana and the church of Santa Maria della Salute, was Carlevarijs' favourite and Richter's treatment of it owes a great deal to the examples of his master. In terms of viewpoint it comes closest to the Carlevarijs in Toronto, Art Gallery of Ontario, but in terms of colouring and execution, the latter of certain figures in particular, the painting echoes any of the views amongst Carlevarijs' oeuvre. There are several motifs unique to Richter however, notably the principal figure group huddled around the magician, which recurs, with slight differences in a lost work of the same view known only through Bernard Vogel's engraving,¹ and the barge at the extreme left which recurs in several other works; see, for example, the views sold New York, Christie's, 24 January 2003, lot 162, and New York, Sotheby's, 16 May 1996, lot 73.

1. See I. Reale & D. Succi, Luca Carlevarijs e la veduta veneziana del Settecento, exhibition catalogue, Padua 1994, p. 119, fig. 6.