Michele Marieschi

With Agnew's, Ltd., London;
Private collection, Belgium, from the beginning of the 20^th century.

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 painting has been recently cleaned and restored. The canvas has an old lining on the reverse but the lining is still very effective. The paint layer is clean and has been retouched and varnished. The retouches are beautifully applied and the canal and buildings in the foreground are all in very fresh and good condition. It is the sky however which like many paintings of this period has become thin over time and has required retouching in order to suppress the deep red priming color used by the artist which had become more apparent. All of the retouches are visible under ultraviolet light and no further conservation is recommended.
"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 veduta has proven to be one of the most inspiring to Venetian painters: Canaletto composed a similar picture, which is dated circa 1730-35, and which was engraved by Visentini.¹  Almost at the same moment, Marieschi painted at least three versions of the same view in addition to the present picture.²  Marieschi has altered Canaletto's viewpoint, moving it towards the right, closer to the bank of the Pescheria.  The other three versions are very close in all respects to the present painting, all featuring Marieschi's characteristic touches of impasto and careful layering of subdued tones.  These features allow the artist to render in full the subtlety of the delicate nuances of color between the different buildings, depicting the long series of palazzi that stretch after Palazzo Michiel, nicknamed "alle colonne" for the unusual open atrium of it ground floor.

In a letter dated July 2005, Ralph Toledano states that in his opinion this work is by the hand of Michele Marieschi.  He dates it to the 1730s, when Marieschi had reached the highest point of his artistic maturity.

 

1.  See W.G. Constable, Canaletto, Oxford 1962, vol. II, p. 288, cat. no. 241.
2.  One is currently preserved in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge (accession no. 190); another is published in R. Toledano, Michele Mareschi, Milan 1995, p. 112, cat. no. V.38b, reproduced; the third's current whereabouts are unknown, although it once belonged to Sir Walter Bromley-Davenport and was exhibited at the Hallsborough Gallery, London in 1972.