(Venice 1771–1849)
Venice, a View of the Piazzetta di San Marco from the Arco dell’Orologio and Interior of the Basilica of Saint Mark, each signed Borsato f., oil on canvas, each 25.4 x 20.5 cm, framed (2)

Provenance:
S. E. Reverendissima Monsignor Daulo Foscolo, Patriarch of Jerusalem;
Private Collection Italy.

Exhibited:
Venice, Imperial Regia Accademia di Belle Arti, ex Scuola della Misericordia, Quinta Sala Palladiana, nos. 1 and 7, 1831.

Cited in:
Gazzetta Privilegiata di Venezia, Elenco degli oggetti di Belle Arti esposti nelle Sale Accademiche, Venice, 1831; Roberto De Feo, Giuseppe Borsato 1770–1849, Fondazione Giorgio Cini, Venice and Scripta ed., Verona 2016, opere non rintracciate, V. 53–54.

A certificate issued by Prof. Roberto De Feo dated 30 August 30 2020 is available upon request.

We are grateful to Prof. Roberto De Feo for confirming the authenticity on the basis of the original and for his scientific assistance in cataloguing this lot.

The two canvases, with their small but balanced format, should be considered to be counterparts. They are both signed, as the artist used to do with all his paintings from 1815 onwards, even if the abbreviation for “fecit” is now almost completely worn away. Having reappeared after one hundred and seventy years of oblivion, they can be identified as being among those shown in 1831 at the annual exhibition of works of art held in the premises of the Imperial Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Venice, in the former Scuola della Misericordia. They were, in fact, reported both in the “Gazzetta Privilegiata di Venezia” – L’interno delle Chiesa di San Marco e veduta della Piazzetta dall‘Arco dell’Orologio per commissione Di S.E. Reverendissima Monsignor Daulo Foscolo Patriarca di Gerusalemme - and in the pamphlet printed for the occasion and entitled Elenco degli Oggetti di Belle Arti esposti nelle Sale Accademiche nell’anno MDCCCXXXI.

Monsignor Daulo Augusto Foscolo (Venice 1785-1860) was a member of the noble Venetian Foscolo family. He was promoted to the archiepiscopal see of Corfu in 1816, elected titular patriarch of Jerusalem in 1830 and of Alexandria in 1847.

The view of the Piazzetta reveals a glimpse of St. Mark’s Basilica and part of the Ducal Palace behind it, framed by the vault supporting the 15th-century clock tower, which connects the Mercerie to St. Mark’s Square.

The second view, on the other hand, shows the left transept of St. Mark’s Basilica taken from the door of the Chapel of St. Isidore, with its vaulted structures covered with exquisite mosaics reaching up to the back wall.