Francesco Guardi

Lady Fitzherbert;

William H. Sage (1844-1924), Albany, New York;

His posthumous Sale, “Notable Paintings: Collection formed by the late William H. Sage, sold by order of Henry W. Sage,” American Art Association, New York, 15 November, 1936, lot 12, reproduced, sold for $1,200 to H. W. Sage;

Thence by descent to his daughter Mrs. W. Allston Flagg (née Lowrie Sage [1900-1987]), Oyster Bay, Long Island, New York;

With Richard Green, London;

From whom acquired by Hans and Marion König, 1985.

Napoleon Bonaparte famously, if most likely apocryphally, called the Piazza San Marco “le plus élégant salon d'Europe.”  Indeed, it was naturally one of the main attractions for the cultivated visitors to Venice who were Guardi’s main clientele, and the artist returned to the subject a number of times in his career, no doubt due to the popularity of the view. An early nocturnal depiction of the Piazza, illuminated for a religious procession, is in the collection of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (inv. WA1927.1) has been dated to circa 1755, in the very earliest moments in the artist’s career as a vedutista. Subsequent treatments of the scene, however, focus on the square as the city’s main public space, allowing Guardi to create variations on a theme, depicting the same viewpoint at different times of day and with changing effects of light.

The present painting is taken from the most common viewpoint of the Piazza, from the now-demolished church of San Geminiano looking east toward the magnificent façade of the Basilica of San Marco.  The steep angle of the shadow falling from the Procuratie Vecchie at the left suggest a winter day, as does the especially cool tonality of the picture. This dramatic effect was used by Guardi as early as the 1760s, such as in the canvas in the Accademia Carrara, Bergamo (inv. 236), although the more expressionistic handling of the paint in the present work suggests a later dating of after 1780.