Francesco Guardi

Hinged to the mount at the upper margin. The paper of the sheet is delicate as seeing the abundance of wash it is quite brittle. There are a few scattered fox marks throughout the sheet. There are a few small brown stains located in the upper left corner. There are a few horizontal creases in the sheet. Medium is very strong and vibrant and overall image is powerful. Sold in an original Venetian 18th century carved and gilded frame.
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Architectural capricci such as the present example must have been very popular with Venetian collects ors and foreign visitors, providing as they do a mixture of fantasy and reality based on real Venetian views.  The elaborate and classical architectural setting of this composition is cleverly left unfinished to the left, where it is only defined by a ragged line.  It is almost as though the curtains of a theater have just been opened on a stage set.  The very abundant and pictorial use of wash suggests a late dating after 1780.  Although horizontal and more elaborate, this view is not very different from that seen in the painting in the Thierry collects ion, Paris, for which there is a related drawing in the Correr Museum, Venice.¹  In the Correr drawing, Guardi has applied a similarly vibrant and strong wash, achieving a very comparable dramatic effect of light and shadow, which underpins the unique impact of these late studies.  These works are drawn with intensity, and in a very painterly manner so characteristic of Francesco Guardi's rococo taste and style, both as a draftsman and as a painter.

1.  Inv. no. 707; A. Morassi, Guardi. I Disegni, Venice 1975, p. 168, fig. 507; for the painting in the Thierry collects ion, see idem., Guardi, Venice 1973, vol. I,  p. 451, no. 758, reproduced vol. II, fig. 693