Vedvta Della Piazza di S. Marco - A Rediscovered Drawing by Luca Carlevarijs

vedvta della piazza di s. marco verso s. giminiano

a rediscovered drawing by luca carlevarijs

SM

(These pages and details at front and back covers) Luca Carlevarijs (Udine 1663 – 1730 Venice) Veduta della Piazza di S. Marco verso S. Giminiano (1703) 7-3/8” x 11-3/8” Black chalk, pen and black and reddish-brown ink, gray washes on laid paper

FIG. 1. Canaletto (1712-1793) The Piazzetta: Looking North, to the Campanile Under Repair (1745), Drawing, Royal Collection

VEDVTA DELLA PIAZZA DI S. MARCO verso s. giminiano a rediscovered drawing by luca carlevarijs

An inscription to the front of the mount ascribes our drawing to Antonio Canal, and it is with him that our search began. Canaletto, of course, drew similar/identical subjects, in similar/identical media, in similar ways. For example, his view of Venice’s Campanile (fig.1) shares with our drawing the same place, same method and colors of pen and ink and washes, while diverging some when it comes to artistic effect. These similarities, we will see, are no accident; while the divergence is sufficient to deny the attribution.

We then went in search of related views,coming across Francesco Zucchi’s 1740 engraving – Prospetto della Piazza di S. Marco verso la Chiesa di S. Giminiano (fig. 2) which, while adhering closely to our drawing’s idiosyncratic frame and perspective, is absent its skill. This pushed us towards other 18th century Venetian artists – the usual suspects - Bernardo Bellotto, Canaletto’s nephew? (fig. 3) No. Francesco Guardi? (fig. 4) No. And there were others.

FIG. 2. Francesco Zucchi (1692-1764) Prospetto della Piazza di S. Marco verso la Chiesa di S. Giminiano (c. 1740), Engraving

At last, Fate smiled; perhaps I should say that it grinned a little, for the revelation was slow to arrive. What about Luca Carlevarijs, we wondered? Canaletto’s teacher early on; soon enough his rival; then, and for the rest of his life, the prodigy’s second fiddle. It is this relationship of teacher and student, rather than that of rivals, which most accounts for the similarities in the working styles of the two artists. When our drawing was made, Canaletto was six years old; Carlevarijs, his future teacher, forty.

FIG. 3. Bernardo Belloto (1721-1780) Piazza San Marco with the Basilica and Palazzo Ducale (c. 1740), Drawing, Rijksmuseum

Canaletto, Guardi and others also followed the older artist’s lead in the production of strikingly majestic, highly ambitious canvases - wide panoramas depicting Venice with a grandeur unseen in earlier paintings. This type of view, dependent upon the city’s singular topography and setting (thus impossible elsewhere), crystallizes how we now think of the place. Still, what appears a commonplace today relied on an artist’s conception three hundred years ago. And yet, with Carlevarijs’s view paintings, as with his drawings, taste moved away from him, towards those he had taught.

FIG. 4. Francesco Guardi (1712-1793) Piazza of St. Mark (mid-18th c.)

Drawing, Morgan Library

FIG. 3. A temple-form Byzantine saint’s reliquary (c 400), 5.5” h. x 8.5” x 5.5”

FIGS. 5a & 5b. Luca Carlevarijs Vedute della Chiesa di San Antonio di Castello (1703) a. Drawing (l). Sold Christie’s - May 26, 2020, Lot 24 b. Engraving (r). From “Le Fabriche e Vedute di Venezia”

FIGS. 6a & 6b. Luca Carlevarijs Palazzo Grimani (1703) a. Drawing (l). Sold Christie’s - January 29, 1988, Lot 122 b. Engraving (r). From “Le Fabriche e Vedute di Venezia”

FIGS. 7a & 7b. Luca Carlevarijs Veduta della Piazza di S. Marco (1703) a. Our drawing (l). b. Engraving (r). From“Le Fabriche e Vedute di Venezia”

We located two Carlevarijs drawings sold at Christie’s, one a year ago (figs. 5a & b), the other in 1998 (figs. 6a & b), both preparatory to the artist’s 1703 volume, Le fabriche e vedute di Venezia, including 104 views of La Serenissima’s most notable places. The Getty describes this a “monumental publication”, considered at the time “the most complete survey of the fabric of the city ever produced”.

The dimensions of the Christie’s drawings closely accord with ours; the media identical.

The British Museum holds 86 of Carlevarijs’ preparatory drawings for Le fabriche…, acquired in 1866 as works by Canaletto - a fiction enduring in our drawing’s erroneous attribution. The etchings in that volume closely adhere to Carlevarijs’ drawings.

Neither of the Christie’s drawings is among the British Museum’s holdings. I confess some most anxious moments thumbing through the Museum’s visual inventory, hoping not to encounter our drawing. I didn’t.

The great majority of the British Museum drawings are oiled - almost certainly to facilitate transfer - and this has much degraded their appearance today. These drawings and resultant etchings are identically-sized. Why/how did some drawings – several at the Museum, those two at Christie’s and ours - escape being oiled?

In this context, the condition of our view of St. Mark’s is among its strengths. Note the very close correspondence between this and its etched counterpart in Le fabriche..(figs. 7a & b).

Recall that impoverished, mid-18th century view of the very similar scene by Francesco Zucchi, copying Carlevarijs’ from decades earlier. This sincerest form of flattery is not entirely reserved for less talented artists. In 1735, Antonio Visentini engraved a view by Canaletto that is even closer (fig. 8), part of a series titled Urbis Venetiarum Prospectus Celebriores, ex Antonii Canal, begun in 1725. His view of S. Marco was among the last of the series, published only five years following the death in 1740 of his overshadowed teacher.

A coincidence or homage or victory lap?

Another example, as if one were needed, of that maxim variously given to T. S. Eliot, Picasso, and Steve Jobs – Good artists copy, great artists steal?

With our drawing, some mysteries remain.

To the reverse side of the frame is another annotation – “Ex Hogarth Colln” and “Wm Howgate”. That Hogarth (1697-1764) and Signor Canal (1697 -1768) , to whom the drawing would then have been attributed, were very close contemporaries. The British painter William Howgate (1837-1906) was later.

FIG. 8. Canaletto Areae Majoris S. Marci Prospectus ad Templum S. Geminiani (1735) Engraving. From“Urbis Venetiarum Prospectus Celebriores, ex Antonii Canal”