(Venice 1689–1761 Charlottenborg)
View of the Piazzetta looking towards the Grand Canal with the Punta della Dogana and the Salute, Venice,
oil on canvas, 95.5 x 128 cm, framed

Provenance:
Private European Collection

We are grateful to Dario Succi for suggesting the attribution.

Jacopo Fabris was active not only as a scene painter for the theatre, but also as a painter of Venetian and Roman views. As a stage painter Fabris’ worked mainly in Germany: from 1719 to 1721 he was court painter at Karlsruhe, from 1724 to 1728 he sojourned at Hamburg and from 1741 he worked at the Berlin Opera in the service of Frederick II the Great. In 1746 he moved to Copenhagen entering the court of Frederick IV and subsequently he taught architecture and perspective at the Academy of Art, Charlottenbourg; he completed a treatise on architecture in 1760.

Having spent most of his life abroad, it is understandable that the majority of Jacopo Fabris’ Venetian and Roman views are based on the paintings and engravings of other artists, including Luca Carlevarijs, Michele Marieschi, Antonio Visentini, Antonio Canal and Gaspar van Wittel. The present painting, however, is not based on an engraving by any of the above mentioned authors, although the same view point was used by other Venetian view painters, such as Bernardo Canal and Apollonio Facchinetti called Domenichini.

This view is taken from a notably high viewpoint. Represented to the right is the end section of the Library façade, executed to the design of Jacopo Sansovino from 1537, to receive the book collection of the institution’s founding donor, Cardinal Bessarione. At Sansovino’s death the wing of the building towards the Molo (represented in the present painting) was unfinished: between 1583 and 1588 it was completed by Vincenzo Scamozzi. The façade consists of a ground floor portico of Doric columns, surmounted on the first floor by windows divided by Ionic columns, above which is a terrace enclosed by a balustrade ornamented with statues of mythological divinities.

Represented on the right is the Punta della Dogana surmounted by the statue of Fortune and the monumental church of Santa Maria della Salute, the masterpiece of Baldassare Longhena, built between 1631 and 1687 to fulfill the promise made by the Senate during the plague of 1630 which devastated the city’s population. The church is characterized by an octagonal plan upon which rests the drum that supports a great dome which terminates in a lantern. This is in turn surmounted by a statue of the Virgin dressed as ‘Capitana da mar’ [‘sea Captain’] holding the baton of command. In the background we glimpse the abbey complex and church of San Gregorio, founded in the 9th century and rebuilt during the second half of the 15th century.

According to Succi, the attribution of this view painting is confirmed by the distinctive stylistic and technical characteristics of the Venetian artist: the careful, but not explicit, description of the architectural fabric orchestrating the fall of well-defined shade, the sky crossed by pink and grey clouds of notably decorative effect and the figures, also revealing stylistic similarities to those of Johann Richter, such as the bright colours, notable in the varied grouping of figures include common folk, ladies and gentlemen, gathering in the Piazzetta near the columns of San Theodoro and Saint Mark’s Lion.

Succi dates the present work to around 1745-1750.