Lot 1306 Dα

This previously unknown veduta is a significant addition to the work of Luca Carlevarijs (1663-1730), the founder of the famous Venetian school of 18th-century viewpainters. Born in Udine, in the region of Friuli, in Northeastern Italy, Carlevarijs came to Venice at a young age. His first dated work is a series of prints, entitled Le Fabriche e Vedute di Venezia, from 1708, showing various sites of Venice in over a hundred images. His style as a painter owes much to Northern European artists working in Rome at the end of the XVIIth century, such as Johann Eismann, and, most notably, Jan Lingelbach and Jan Baptist Weenix. The success of the Venetian views of the Netherlander Gaspar Vanvitelli (van Wittel) will certainly have contributed to his choice of specializing into the genre of large-scale vedute, of which the present picture is a perfect example.
Our painting represents one of the canonical views of Venice, the Piazzetta seen from the Molo. On the right we see the facade of the Doge's Palace, further to the rear we discern San Marco, and on the left the Libreria Marciana is situated. This view had been popular among painters and engravers from the XVIth century onwards, but Carlevarijs, typically, changed the traditional viewpoint from the center of the Piazzetta slightly to the left, populating the scene with many figures and illuminating it with a clear, spring-like light. As a result, the view is more lively, more interesting, more like an image taken directly from nature. It would seem that the composition met with approval, as is borne out by a number of autograph painted versions known in various collections arond the world. Among these, the monumental (96 x 195 cm) view of the Piazzetta, now in the Timken Museum of Art in San Diego is closest to our picture. Compared to the latter work, Carlevarijs operated some subtle changes in our picture, shifting the Torre dell'Orologio, in the background, further to the left, etc.
Surely there was a growing market for Carlevarijs' view paintings, as is clear from the number of works by his hands known today. Unfortunately we have little information as to who these early clients were. Conceivably, a picture such as the work here presented, which may perhaps be dated in the second decade of the XVIIIth century, was done for a foreign commissioner or a Grand Tourist.

Bernard Aikema