No.31 Giovanni Battista Piranesi 1.
The present sheet bears the collector’s mark, stamped once on the recto and once on the verso, of the French marchand-amateur Jacques Petithory (1929-1992), who dealt in Old Master drawings from a stall at the Marché aux Puces in Paris from the mid-1950s onwards. At his death in 1992 Petithory (or Petit-Hory) left much of his eclectic collection of mainly Italian and French drawings, numbering 186 sheets, together with paintings, sculptures, ceramics and other objets d’art, to the Musée Bonnat (now the Musée Bonnat-Helleu) in Bayonne.
2.
Hylton Thomas, The Drawings of Giovanni Battista Piranesi, New York, 1954, p.15.
3.
David Rosand, ‘Col Sporcar Si Trova: Piranesi Draws’, in Sarah E. Lawrence, ed., Piranesi as Designer, exhibition catalogue, New York and Haarlem, 2007-2008, p.139.
4.
The freedom and expressiveness of Piranesi’s figure drawings, as well as their seeming spontaneity and economy of handling, has led some in the past to be mistakenly attributed to Francesco Guardi, and, particularly for the chalk drawings, Antoine Watteau.
5.
Thomas, op.cit., pp.25-26.
6.
Wolk-Simon and Bambach, op.cit., pp.219-220, no.69. The dimensions of the drawing are 190 x 300 mm.
7.
Wolk-Simon and Bambach, op.cit., p.219, under no.69.
No.32 Francesco Guardi 1.
Rudolf Wittkower, Art and Architecture in Italy 1600-1750, Part III: Late Baroque and Rococo 1675-1750, New Haven and London, 1958, [1999 ed.], p.106.
2.
Catherine Whistler, Baroque & Later Italian Paintings in the Ashmolean Museum, London, 2016, p.186, under no.52.
3.
Michael Levey, ‘Introduction to 18th-Century Venetian Art’, in Jane Martineau and Andrew Robison, ed., The Glory of Venice: Art in the Eighteenth Century, exhibition catalogue, London and Washington, D.C., 1994-1995, p.22.
4.
Ibid., p.28.
5.
James Byam Shaw, The Drawings of Francesco Guardi, London, 1951, p.31.
6.
Ibid., pp.54-55.
7.
Inv. 490-1882; Vittorio Moschini, Francesco Guardi, London, 1956, pl.129; C. M. Kauffmann, Victoria and Albert Museum: Catalogue of Foreign Paintings, Vol.I – Before 1800, London, 1973, p.141, no.162; Antonio Morassi, Guardi: I dipinti, Venice, 1973-1975 [reprinted 1985], Vol.I, p.447, no.734, Vol.II, fig.669 (where dated c.1760-1770). The dimensions of the painting are 92.7 x 72.5 cm.
8.
James Byam Shaw, ‘Some Guardi Drawings Rediscovered’, Master Drawings, Spring 1977, p.11, no.7, pl.10.
9.
Luigi Dania, ‘Some Unpublished Drawings by Francesco Guardi in Private Collections’, Master Drawings, Winter 1973, pl.44 (where dated c.1790).
10. James Byam Shaw, ‘Unpublished Guardi Drawings III & IV’, The Art Quarterly, Autumn 1954; reprinted in London, Colnaghi, J.B.S. Selected Writings, 1968, pp.120-121, no.16, pl.80; Antonio Morassi, Guardi: Tutti i disegni di Antonio, Francesco e Giacomo Guardi, Venice, 1975, p.166, no.500, fig.501. The dimensions of the drawing are 125 x 72 mm. 11. Dania, op.cit., p.385. 12. Inv. 3197; Moschini, op.cit., pl.131; Morassi, op.cit., 1973-1975, Vol.I, p.443, no.713, Vol.II, fig.675; Alberto Craievich and Filippo Pedrocco, ed., Francesco Guardi 1712-1793, exhibition catalogue, Venice, 2012-2013, p.176, no.58, illustrated in colour p.155 (where dated to the late 1770s). 13. Inv. Cl. III, no.7318; Rodolfo Pallucchini, Guardis Zeichnungen im Museum Correr zu Venedig, Florence, 1943, p.57, no.152, p.233, fig.152; Moschini, op.cit., pl.130; Morassi, op.cit., 1975, pp.164-165, no.487, fig.484; Terisio Pignatti, Disegni antichi del Museo Correr di Venezia, Vol.III, Venice, 1983, pp.128-129, no.603; Craievich and Pedrocco, ed., ibid., p.179, no.70, illustrated in colour p.168. 14. Levey, op.cit., p.41. No.33 Giovanni Antoni Canal, called Canaletto 1.
The first owner of this drawing, Cavaliere Antonio Grandi (1857-1923), was an important figure in Milanese commercial and industrial circles, as well as a perceptive collector. He was a judge in the Commercial Court and a member of the administrative Council of the Banca Lombarda. Grandi lent the present sheet to the exhibition of 18th and 19th century Venetian art held at the Petit Palais in Paris in 1919, the only time it has previously been exhibited. He also lent a handful of other works to the same exhibition, including a drawing by Francesco Guardi and a portrait painting by Sebastiano Ricci.
2.
Senator Luigi Albertini (1871-1941), who may have acquired this drawing directly from Grandi, is known above all as the editor of the Milanese newspaper Corriere della Sera from 1900 until his removal in 1925 for his opposition to the Fascist government. Albertini also owned the magnificent pair of Venetian views by Canaletto of The Molo looking West and The Riva degli Schiavoni looking East, acquired in 1995 for the Museo