(Venice 1712–1793)
The Bucintoro by San Nicolò al Lido, Venice, on Ascension Day,
oil on canvas, 19 x 29.5 cm, framed

Provenance:
Private European collection

We are grateful to Bożena Anna Kowalczyk for confirming the attribution and for her help in cataloguing this lot.

The present painting is a new addition to Francesco Guardi’s oeuvre. In this composition he returns to representing the feast of the Ascension. It was the most spectacular of the Republic’s traditional celebrations, and it commemorated the conquest of Dalmatia by Doge Pietro II Orseolo (961-1009). The Doge, accompanied by the Senate, would journey on the state vessel, the Bucintoro, from the Molo to the church of San Nicolò del Lido to perform the rite of marriage to the sea: the Sposalizio del Mare. During the ceremony the Doge would throw a gold ring into the water as a symbol of Venice’s dominion over the sea, to which the maritime republic owed its fortune. This celebration, also called the Festa della Sensa, was particularly popular with visiting Grand Tourists. It was also the most picturesque of events: the magnificent State vessel called the Bucintoro would leave the Arsenale for that one day of the year only, accompanied by a fleet of gondolas and other craft.

Luca Carlevarijs (1663-1730) was the first to choose this event as a means of depicting the most sumptuous images of Venice which were certainly very successful with foreign visitors and collectors, however, his representations of the ‘Festa della Sensa’ represent the moment when the Bucintoro was at the Molo, either having returned or about to depart for the Lido, showing the Bacino di San Marco seething with vessels beyond. During the early 1730s Canaletto followed Carlevarijs’ example with a series of large canvases, executed for foreign ambassadors to Venice: those of France, the Holy Roman Empire and perhaps also for King Louis XV as well as for Joseph Smith, his patron. Towards 1735-1736 he altered the point of view to portray the Bacino from the west, towards Riva degli Schiavoni, thus including ever more embarcations , but with the Bucintoro still moored at the Molo. Only in 1763-1766 did Canaletto compose two drawings for the series of twelve Feste Dogali [Ducal Celebrations] in which the Bucintoro is represented in motion, during the journey towards the Lido near San Nicolò. These drawings were engraved by Giambattista Brustolon (1718-1796) and translated into paintings by Guardi in 1775-1778 (A. Morassi, Guardi: Antonio e Francesco Guardi, Venice 1973, vol. I, cat. nos. 247, 248, vol. II, figs. 273, 274). They served Guardi as inspiration for an extensive series of drawn and painted representations of the Bucintoro, set within the broad space of the Bacino and open lagoon, with the monuments of the Lido or of Venice signalled on the horizon, while the occasional sailing boat may appear in the distance. During his final years the Festa della Sensa was among Francesco’s preferred subjects wherein he represented the Bucintoro from various different points of view, either travelling to or from the Lido, in a series of works which thanks to his marvellously sensitive touch, communicate all the atmospheric refinement of eighteenth century Venice. Distinctive among these paintings is the pair formerly in the collection of Mario Crespi in Milan: The Bucintoro by the Lido, Venice, on Ascension Day, and The Bucintoro returning from the Lido, Venice, on Ascension Day of circa 1780 (see op. cit. Morassi, 1973, vol. I, cat. nos. 283, 284, vol. II, figs. 313, 314). These are splendid works, taken from a high position akin to a birds-eye view, wherein the extensive breadth of the Bacino and the lagoon is furrowed by a myriad of vessels surrounding the Bucintoro, seen from afar, but as in the present painting, represented full length. A rendering taken from closer to, as in the present instance, appears in the Bucintoro in front of the Lido, Venice of 1778-1780 in the National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin (op. cit. Morassi, 1973, vol. I, cat. no. 291, vol. II, fig. 323) and in another canvas, in a private collection, showing the Bucintoro by San Nicolò al Lido, Venice (op. cit. Morassi, 1973, vol. I, cat. no. 287, vol. II, fig. 316) wherein the main vessel is seen at a slight angle, as in a very swift study in the Fogg Art Museum (A. Morassi, Guardi: Tutti i disegni di Antonio, Francesco e Giacomo Guardi, Venice 1975, cat. no. 284, fig. 286).

In a drawing of the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Lille, the Bucintoro is rendered in a position on the Bacino, as it is in the present painting, just after the Island of San Giorgio Maggiore, on the journey towards the Lido (op. cit. Morassi, 1975, cat. no. 282, fig. 284). In yet another drawing in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, the Bucintoro is the absolute protagonist, with studies for these paintings on both sides: on the recto for journey toward the Lido and on the verso for the return (see fig. 1); here the vessel fills almost the entire page standing witness to the fascination this ship exerted on the artist (op. cit. Morassi, 1975, cat. no. 291, fig. 294). Antonio Morassi believed this drawing was taken from life while James Byam Shaw, comparing the sketches with a careful depiction of the vessel published at Venice in a print of 1772 by Teodoro Viero (as ‘Canaletto del.’; British Museum, London, inv. no. 1866,1110.1165), asserts a correspondence of details, despite the drawing being a swift almost short-hand sketch (J. Byam Shaw, The Drawings of Francesco Guardi, London 1961, pp. 72-73, cat. 52).

The same observations can also be made of the present painting which reflects the apogee of the artist’s poetic tone, seen here in an ever more rarefied atmospheric treatment, generated with swift and precise strokes. Its dimensions are similar to those of the drawings, it is executed on a canvas of heavy weave prepared with a brown ground: beneath a blue-grey sky the ducal vessel glides across the green waters of the Bacino, the red of its oars, flanks and prow and the gilding of its decorations all resplendent – the work’s emotional charge is such that it captures the effect of a miniature, reproducing every detail of the original vessel. The vast train of gondolas with their miniscule oarsmen, depicted with precise touches of colour applied at brush-point, are a marvellous demonstration of the artist’s astonishing pictorial virtuosity.