Lot No. 107 -


Francesco Guardi


Francesco Guardi - Old Master Paintings

(Venice 1712–1793)
San Giorgio Maggiore, Venice,
oil on panel, 21 x 33 cm, framed

Provenance:
Collection of Fritz von Gans (1833–1920), Frankfurt am Main;
Collection of Robert von Hirsch (1883–1977), Frankfurt am Main/Basel (according to a label on the reverse, no. 6);
his sale, Sotheby’s, London, 1 October 1978, lot 113 (as Francesco Guardi);
sale, Sotheby’s, London, 2 July 1986, lot 124 (as Francesco Guardi);
Private European collection

Exhibited:
Frankfurt am Main, Städelsches Kunstinstitut, Ausstellung von Meisterwerken alter Malerei aus Privatbesitz, Summer 1925, no. 99 (as Francesco Guardi);
Paris, Gallery Trotti, 1932

Literature:
O. Goetz, G. Swarzenski, A. Wolters, Ausstellung von Meisterwerken alter Malerei aus Privatbesitz, Frankfurt am Main 1926, pp. 32–33, cat. no. 96, plate XC (as Francesco Guardi);
A. Morassi, Guardi. L’opera completa di Antonio e Francesco Guardi, 1973, vol. I, p. 394, no. 446 (as Francesco Guardi)

The present veduta is a late work by the Venetian painter Francesco Guardi, and represents one of the many iconic sights of the city of Venice, which was replicated by Guardi himself in variants over the course of his career.

Francesco Guardi was the last great master of Venetian vedutisimo, view painting. He trained in the family studio with his elder brother Gian Antonio and spent his entire life in Venice. He began as a figure painter and only at an advanced stage in his career, probably around the mid-1750s, when he was already in his maturity, did he begin to dedicate himself to view painting, owing to considerable demand. Guardi was also a history and genre painter, a portraitist, as well as a painter of landscapes and capricci, all of which attained great acclaim among his Venetian contemporaries and patrons.

In the present composition the church of San Giorgio Maggiore is lit up in the warm, reddish-yellow light of the morning sun. The calm water of the Bacino di San Marco is animated by gondolas and other boats. This view of Venice was also depicted on several occasions by Giovanni Antonio Canal, called il Canaletto, who also made variants of the subject; one such example is his version of the church of San Giorgio Maggiore in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. For Francesco Guardi these paintings certainly served as models against which to measure himself, as he skillfully attained distance from Canaletto´s style, developing a extremely personal and entirely original pictorial language of his own. In contrast to the meticulous sharp and detail-obsessed vision of Canaletto, Guardi’s figures and buildings are rendered with vibrant brush strokes, achieving a general impression of poetically atmospheric effects. The importance of the precise calculation as seen in Canaletto’s practice with the camera obscura, is replaced now by Guardi’s pittura di tocco (painting of touch), by the freehand drawn vertical as well as small dots and dashes rather than solid strokes. Plasticity is created by a refined play of light and shadow on the painted facades, cupolas and towers, together with a loose modelling, using swiftly applied black outlines and white highlights. The figures often play a secondary role in his vedute, as they tend to only be composed of single patches of colour, without outlining certain features or body parts.

The overarching aspect in Guardi’s mature paintings can be found in the luminosity and ‘phantasmagoria of colours’ (A. Morassi, Guardi. I dipinti, vol. I, Milan 1984, p. 241), as seen in the present composition. Indeed, the bright, crisp light of the morning sun illuminates the scene, which Guardi has accentuated through the application of dynamic, gestural brushwork, extending from the right border towards the centre of the painting and to the sky with calmer brushstrokes in the dazzling reflection in the water. The transition from the water to the sky is harmonious, the green and blue tones integrate well with the reddish-brown colours, tempered further by a succession of ochre tones. This ‘aestheticisation’ of light, culminated by later artists such as William Turner or Claude Monet, began with Guardi’s distinctive approach. His improvisational manner, which owed little to the sort of scientific analyses of optics, inspired the Impressionist movement, and the most spirited views of Venice by Auguste Renoir, who visited the city in 1881, and Claude Monet (see fig. 1) who travelled to Venice in 1908, who themselves reflect the nervous brushwork and naturalistic atmosphere of the great Rococo master. 

Boasting a significant provenance history, the present painting once belonged to the collection of the German industrialist and patron, Friedrich (Fritz) Ludwig von Gans (1833–1920). Von Gans. In 1912 he donated his collection to the Königliche Museen, Berlin, for which King Wilhelm II appointed him to the peerage. Von Gans also donated two of his paintings to the Städel Museum, Frankfurt. After his death in 1920, his heirs sold the rest of his private collection.

From there Guardi’s veduta entered the celebrated collection of Robert von Hirsch (1883–1977), a member of a group of connoisseurs, collectors and scholars, which included Berenson, Bode, von Falke, Mayer and Friedländer. When remarking on Robert von Hirsch, Berenson declared that the esteemed collector was one of the few, who actually knew about the objects they collected.

In 1905, at the age of 22, Robert von Hirsch met Georg Swarzenski, the newly appointed director of the Städelsches Kunstinstitut and it was under Swarzenski’s guidance that the young businessman developed his collection. During a remarkably short period in the 1920s and early 1930s, von Hirsch assembled his unrivalled collection of old master paintings, from which he lent twelve in 1925 to the Ausstellung von Meisterwerken alter Malerei aus Privatbesitz [exhibition of old master paintings from private collections] at the Städel Museum, among them also the present painting. When a few years later, the political climate in Germany became apparent, he transferred his business interests to Basel. In 1933 he applied for and was granted permission to emigrate with his entire collection to Basel, where he was to remain until his death in 1977. After his death, his collection was auctioned in London in 1978, in what was considered to be ‘the sale of the century’.

Specialist: Mark MacDonnell Mark MacDonnell
+43 1 515 60 403

mark.macdonnell@dorotheum.at

10.11.2021 - 16:00

Estimate:
EUR 400,000.- to EUR 600,000.-

Francesco Guardi


(Venice 1712–1793)
San Giorgio Maggiore, Venice,
oil on panel, 21 x 33 cm, framed

Provenance:
Collection of Fritz von Gans (1833–1920), Frankfurt am Main;
Collection of Robert von Hirsch (1883–1977), Frankfurt am Main/Basel (according to a label on the reverse, no. 6);
his sale, Sotheby’s, London, 1 October 1978, lot 113 (as Francesco Guardi);
sale, Sotheby’s, London, 2 July 1986, lot 124 (as Francesco Guardi);
Private European collection

Exhibited:
Frankfurt am Main, Städelsches Kunstinstitut, Ausstellung von Meisterwerken alter Malerei aus Privatbesitz, Summer 1925, no. 99 (as Francesco Guardi);
Paris, Gallery Trotti, 1932

Literature:
O. Goetz, G. Swarzenski, A. Wolters, Ausstellung von Meisterwerken alter Malerei aus Privatbesitz, Frankfurt am Main 1926, pp. 32–33, cat. no. 96, plate XC (as Francesco Guardi);
A. Morassi, Guardi. L’opera completa di Antonio e Francesco Guardi, 1973, vol. I, p. 394, no. 446 (as Francesco Guardi)

The present veduta is a late work by the Venetian painter Francesco Guardi, and represents one of the many iconic sights of the city of Venice, which was replicated by Guardi himself in variants over the course of his career.

Francesco Guardi was the last great master of Venetian vedutisimo, view painting. He trained in the family studio with his elder brother Gian Antonio and spent his entire life in Venice. He began as a figure painter and only at an advanced stage in his career, probably around the mid-1750s, when he was already in his maturity, did he begin to dedicate himself to view painting, owing to considerable demand. Guardi was also a history and genre painter, a portraitist, as well as a painter of landscapes and capricci, all of which attained great acclaim among his Venetian contemporaries and patrons.

In the present composition the church of San Giorgio Maggiore is lit up in the warm, reddish-yellow light of the morning sun. The calm water of the Bacino di San Marco is animated by gondolas and other boats. This view of Venice was also depicted on several occasions by Giovanni Antonio Canal, called il Canaletto, who also made variants of the subject; one such example is his version of the church of San Giorgio Maggiore in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. For Francesco Guardi these paintings certainly served as models against which to measure himself, as he skillfully attained distance from Canaletto´s style, developing a extremely personal and entirely original pictorial language of his own. In contrast to the meticulous sharp and detail-obsessed vision of Canaletto, Guardi’s figures and buildings are rendered with vibrant brush strokes, achieving a general impression of poetically atmospheric effects. The importance of the precise calculation as seen in Canaletto’s practice with the camera obscura, is replaced now by Guardi’s pittura di tocco (painting of touch), by the freehand drawn vertical as well as small dots and dashes rather than solid strokes. Plasticity is created by a refined play of light and shadow on the painted facades, cupolas and towers, together with a loose modelling, using swiftly applied black outlines and white highlights. The figures often play a secondary role in his vedute, as they tend to only be composed of single patches of colour, without outlining certain features or body parts.

The overarching aspect in Guardi’s mature paintings can be found in the luminosity and ‘phantasmagoria of colours’ (A. Morassi, Guardi. I dipinti, vol. I, Milan 1984, p. 241), as seen in the present composition. Indeed, the bright, crisp light of the morning sun illuminates the scene, which Guardi has accentuated through the application of dynamic, gestural brushwork, extending from the right border towards the centre of the painting and to the sky with calmer brushstrokes in the dazzling reflection in the water. The transition from the water to the sky is harmonious, the green and blue tones integrate well with the reddish-brown colours, tempered further by a succession of ochre tones. This ‘aestheticisation’ of light, culminated by later artists such as William Turner or Claude Monet, began with Guardi’s distinctive approach. His improvisational manner, which owed little to the sort of scientific analyses of optics, inspired the Impressionist movement, and the most spirited views of Venice by Auguste Renoir, who visited the city in 1881, and Claude Monet (see fig. 1) who travelled to Venice in 1908, who themselves reflect the nervous brushwork and naturalistic atmosphere of the great Rococo master. 

Boasting a significant provenance history, the present painting once belonged to the collection of the German industrialist and patron, Friedrich (Fritz) Ludwig von Gans (1833–1920). Von Gans. In 1912 he donated his collection to the Königliche Museen, Berlin, for which King Wilhelm II appointed him to the peerage. Von Gans also donated two of his paintings to the Städel Museum, Frankfurt. After his death in 1920, his heirs sold the rest of his private collection.

From there Guardi’s veduta entered the celebrated collection of Robert von Hirsch (1883–1977), a member of a group of connoisseurs, collectors and scholars, which included Berenson, Bode, von Falke, Mayer and Friedländer. When remarking on Robert von Hirsch, Berenson declared that the esteemed collector was one of the few, who actually knew about the objects they collected.

In 1905, at the age of 22, Robert von Hirsch met Georg Swarzenski, the newly appointed director of the Städelsches Kunstinstitut and it was under Swarzenski’s guidance that the young businessman developed his collection. During a remarkably short period in the 1920s and early 1930s, von Hirsch assembled his unrivalled collection of old master paintings, from which he lent twelve in 1925 to the Ausstellung von Meisterwerken alter Malerei aus Privatbesitz [exhibition of old master paintings from private collections] at the Städel Museum, among them also the present painting. When a few years later, the political climate in Germany became apparent, he transferred his business interests to Basel. In 1933 he applied for and was granted permission to emigrate with his entire collection to Basel, where he was to remain until his death in 1977. After his death, his collection was auctioned in London in 1978, in what was considered to be ‘the sale of the century’.

Specialist: Mark MacDonnell Mark MacDonnell
+43 1 515 60 403

mark.macdonnell@dorotheum.at


Buyers hotline Mon.-Fri.: 10.00am - 5.00pm
old.masters@dorotheum.at

+43 1 515 60 403
Auction: Old Master Paintings
Auction type: Saleroom auction with Live Bidding
Date: 10.11.2021 - 16:00
Location: Vienna | Palais Dorotheum
Exhibition: 29.10. - 10.11.2021