(Augsburg circa 1600–1678 Venice) 
The Bull Hunt in Campo San Polo, Venice,
oil on canvas, 61 x 91.5 cm, framed

Provenance:
sale, Palais Galliera, Paris, 18 June 1964, lot 16;
sale, Hotel Drouot, Paris, 9 December 1976, lot 2;
art market;
Private Collection, United Kingdom;
where acquired by the present owner

Exhibited:
London, Lampronti Gallery, The Magical Light of Venice. Eighteenth Century View Paintings, 30 November 2017 – 15 January 2018

Literature:
D. D’Anza, Appunti sulla produzione festiva di Joseph Heintz il giovane. Opere autografe e di bottega, in: Arte in Friuli Arte a Trieste, 24, 2005, pp. 7, 10-14 and note 10, p. 19;
J. Niewind, Joseph Heintz d. J. und die Zeremonien der Serenissima, doctoral thesis, Trier University, 2013, p. 229, mentioned under note 394;
M. di Martino (ed.), The Magical Light of Venice. Eighteenth Century View Paintings, exhibition catalogue, Florence 2017, pp. 4-5

The present painting is registered in the Fototeca Zeri (no. 56815) as Joseph Heintz the Younger.

The present painting depicts a venetian spectacle that were held in the city during Carnival: it remained immensely popular until its abolition in the nineteenth century. Called the Caccia ai Tori or the Bull Hunt, it was a kind of domesticated corrida that was held in various squares round Venice. Here the bulls, or more frequently oxen, were set free only to be goaded by trained dogs, and when occasionally they pulled free of their tiratori or harness holders, they would create panic in the crowds of bystanders, sparking the hilarity of the spectators that watched from the balconies above.

From the fifteenth century onwards various artists had immortalised this type of venetian event or ceremony in great commemorative canvases, but Joseph Heintz the Younger, a German painter who conducted the greater part of his career in Venice, was the first to introduce this kind of representation to private art collectors, thanks to his use of small format canvases, which were appropriately sized to the needs of private clients who were increasingly interested in such extravagant and animated views.

The present painting probably belonged to a series of four canvases of contained dimensions, made especially for such a clientele and representing different Venetian celebrations: in addition to the Caccia ai Tori under discussion here, they represented: Il doge in Pozzetto [The Dodge carried in a Litter] Lo Sposalizio del Mare [The Marriage to the Sea] and La Regata sul Canal Grande [The Regata on the Grand Canal] (current location unknown, see D’Anza 2005, in literature).

In the present painting the festive scene unfolds in Campo San Polo, similar to another version by the artist, which is conserved in the Museo Correr, Venice (inv. n. 2059). In this work however the scene is taken from the opposite view point, showing the church of San Polo in the centre, and on the right, the Palazzo Garzoni with its pierced crenellations, which was demolished in the nineteenth century. In the foreground a seething crowd animates the scene: masked figures, agitated bulls straining to pull free from the bonds of their tiratori and ferocious dogs, spectators that have been thrown to the ground, and others fleeing the fury of the animals. Meanwhile, at the centre of the square, another performance typical of the Carnival period in Venice takes place – this saw the rival city factions of the Castellani and Nicolotti challenge each other. This event, the so-called Forze d’Ercole [Exertions of Hercules] saw a group of accomplished gymnasts form a human pyramid assisted only by a series of long poles.

The execution of these animated figures who seem to challenge the forces of gravity may reveal the intervention of a collaborator: further evidencing how Joseph Heintz increasingly needed the support of an active workshop as the growing demand for this kind of painting asserted itself amongst an exacting, and possibly also foreign, clientele.

The German painter, who was the son of Joseph Heintz the Elder (1564-1609) gained his earliest training in the city of Augsburg, but he was already in Italy by 1625 where he was active between Rome and Venice. From 1632 he established himself definitively in the lagoon city where he registered in the fraglia dei pittori or painter’s guild. His highly varied and eclectic production ranged to embrace views of Venetian festivals animated by boldly farcical connotations, inspired by the art of Jacques Callot, to works characterised by a genre of vernacular naturalism imported to Venice by Monsù Bernardo. Heintz’s success was also determined by his stregozzi or witches’ sabbats – bizarre and extravagant paintings populated by grotesque and monstrous beings that were much appreciated by his Venetian patrons who were then particularly rediscovering the work of Bosch.