- 102
Attributed to Francesco Guardi
Description
- Francesco Guardi
- Portrait of a boy of the Gradenigo family, possibly Ferigo (born 1758), full length, with his pet dove on a ribbon, a white rabbit in the background
- oil on canvas
Provenance
Where acquired by Dino Barozzi, Venice;
With Arnold Seligmann, New York;
By whom (anonymously) sold, New York, Parke-Bernet, 15 November 1950, lot 76;
There acquired by Walter Rosen;
By whom given to the present owner.
Exhibited
San Francisco, California, California Palace of the Legion of Honor, Italian Baroque Painting of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century, 1941, no. 54.
Literature
H. Tietze, Four Centuries of Venetian Art, exhibition catalogue, Toldeo 1940, cat. no. 26, reproduced (as Guardi);
Exhibition of Italian baroque painting, 17th and 18th centuries, exhibition catalogue, San Francisco 1941, pp. 18-19, reproduced p. 70 (as Guardi);
Pittura Barocca Veneziana, Venice 1943, p. XVI (as Guardi);
G. Fiocco, "Guardi ritrattista," in Emporium, vol. XCVIII, 1943, pp. 96, 100, reproduced figs. 5 and 6 (as Guardi, datable circa 1770);
A. Morassi, Guardi: i dipinti, Venice 1984, pp. 158, 349, cat. no. 218, reproduced, vol. II, fig. 234 (as Guardi, datable to 1768-70);
G.M. Pilo, "Un ritratto di Francesco Guardi," in Paragone, vol. 36, 1985, p. 278;
F. Pedrocco, "Francesco Guardi pittore di 'storia'," in Francesco Guardi, exhibition catalogue, Museo Correr, Venice, 29 September, 2012- 6 January, 2013, Milan 2012, p. 59 (as Guardi).
Condition
"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."
Catalogue Note
The present work would appear to be one of the rare portraits by Francesco Guardi, belonging to a group of paintings of children that can be connected on stylistic grounds. It is, in fact, one of two paintings that were acquired together by the Venetian dealer and antiquarian Dino Barozzi (see Provenance), directly from the Palazzo Gradenigo del Rio Marin, in the Santa Croce sestiere of Venice.1 The pendant to the present canvas is the Portrait of a Boy of the Gradenigo Family in Uniform in the Museum of Fine Arts, Springfield, Massachusetts (see fig. 1). Barozzi sold the two paintings separately, with the Springfield portrait going through the Munich dealer Paul Drey to arrive in America by 1935. In his article on the portraiture of Guardi (see Literature), Fiocco noted the shared early provenance of the two portraits, and that the present painting has been added to after Barozzi had acquired it, illustrating the painting when it was in its original, three quarter-length format matching that of the Springfield canvas. Indeed, the two paintings are approximately 37 inches in height when the Caramoor portrait is measured without the addition of the lower legs and feet.
Family tradition had named the sitters in the two portraits as the brothers Pietro and Giovanni Gradenigo. In fact, as Fiocco points out, a more likely identification would be the brothers Gerolamo, born in 1754 (Springfield), and Ferigo, born in 1758 (Caramoor). Fiocco, Morassi and Pedrocco all date the paintings generally to circa 1768-70, which would make the boys of about the right age. Interestingly, a related painting now in the National Museum Wales has since come to light which is very similar to the Caramoor portrait. It depicts a young girl, perhaps also of the Gradenigo family holding a pet bird on a ribbon.
1. See Fiocco, under Literature, p. 96. The Gradenigo del Rio Marin were a cadet branch of the illustrious Gradenigo family, producing themselves a number of very important figures, most particularly a number of Patriarchs of Aquileia, the most venerable clerical position in the Venetian state. Fiocco stated that the two paintings hung on either side of a Guardi interior of the Teatro San Benedetto.