Lot 1512 Dα

Inscribed to the reverse of the unlined canvas: F. N.
Friedrich Nerly was born in Erfurt in 1807, but grew up in Hamburg following the early death of both his parents. He travelled to Italy in 1827 with his teacher Baron von Rumohr. After several stops, he eventually settled in Rome in late 1828 and resided there for six years. Instead of returning to Germany as planned, the artist moved to Venice in 1837, where he married the adoptive daughter of a Venetian aristocrat. Aside from several short sojourns, he did not leave the floating city until his death. The artist was buried on the island of San Michele di Murano in late October of 1878.
Nerly's views of Venice were immensely popular among his contemporaries, and he received numerous important guests to the city in his studio, including royalty. This image of the Piazzetta di San Marco bathed in the silvery light of the moon was undoubtedly his most famous motif, and he painted it in numerous versions, of which no two were ever exactly alike. Alongside slightly cropped versions in which the columns of Saint Mark or Saint Theodore formed the focal point, he also painted more panoramic works featuring both columns, the Doge's palace, the Molo and a view of the lagoon. The present canvas is one of these more lavish examples.
Andrea Wandschneider describes the piazetta views in great detail in her comprehensive analysis of Nerly's works in the exhibition catalogue “Römische Tage - Venezianische Nächte. Friedrich Nerly zum 200. Geburtstag” (Dessau, Lübeck and Paderborn 2007/8, p. 33-46). Here she touches upon the complex pictorial arrangement in which the Doge's palace appears to force itself into the image, partially obscuring the moon. Nerly never chose the more obvious compositional solution of bathing the entire scene in moonlight for his piazettas. “This sharp but irresolvable contrast between the dark, compact plane of the architecture and the small, bright segment of the moon is by no means a “comfortable” or “romantic” solution - and is instead even difficult for the eye to grasp.” (op. cit., p. 44). Andrea Wandschneider emphasises the carefully planned and complex nature of Nerly's compositions as something often overlooked in the face of their technical brilliance and enchanting atmosphere.