View of the Dogana and Santa Maria della Salute

Artist Francesco Guardi (Italian, 1712 - 1793)

Date1767-1769

MediumOil on canvas

DimensionsUnframed: 19 1/2 x 26 1/8 inches (49.53 x 66.36 cm)
Framed: 26 1/4 x 33 x 3 1/8 inches (66.68 x 83.82 x 7.94 cm)

Credit LinePurchase: William Rockhill Nelson Trust

Object number30-21

Signedlower right, on barrel: Guardi

On View

On view

Gallery Location

Collections

European Art

Terms

DescriptionThis scene depicts a canal with several boats - gondolas, cargo boats with sails, and a flat barge - floating on the turquoise-blue water; they are painted in dark umber and black tones, with cream-colored rigging. Twelve figures, painted in dark hues and in royal blue and ocher, occupy these craft. In the middle ground is a large cream-colored church (Santa Maria della Salute) and several other buildings. Other buildings are visible in the left background. The pale blue sky above includes soft, wispy clouds. The scene is lit from the left.Exhibition History

Exhibition History

Exhibition of Italian Painting of the Sei- and Settecento, Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, January 22-February 5, 1930, no. 15.

Special Loan Exhibition of Venetian Painting of the Eighteenth Century, City Art Museum of St. Louis, March 1-31, 1936, no. 9.

Francesco Guardi, Museum of Fine Arts, Springfield, Massachusetts, February 20-March 21, 1937, no. 15.

Tiepolo and His Contemporaries, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, March 14-April 24, 1938, no. 28.

Venice in the Eighteenth Century, Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, May 5-June 10, 1948, no. 11.

Renaissance and Baroque Art, Seattle Art Museum, February 8-March 5, 1950, no. 66.

A Tour of Famous Cities, Columbus Gallery of Fine Arts, Ohio, October 3-November 16, 1952, no. 17.

The Century of Mozart, The Nelson Gallery and Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri, January 15- March 4, 1956, no. 48.

City Views, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri, May 31-July 10, 1983, no. 20A.

La Serenissima: Eighteenth Century Venetian Art from North American Collections, Oklahoma City Museum of Art, Oklahoma City, OK, September 9-January 2, 2010-2011.

Gallery Label

As a painter of Venetian views, Guardi was Canaletto's rival. Images such as these were purchased by tourists as mementos of Venice, a popular destination on the European Grand Tour. Here, Guardi paints with more spontaneity than Canaletto, using silvery tones and free, calligraphic brushwork. Between a broad expanse of sky and water is the Dogana, or customs house, a reminder of Venice's centuries-old importance as a center of international trade. To its right is the church of Santa Maria della Salute, built in the 17th century to honor the Virgin Mary, who was credited with stopping a plague epidemic that had killed nearly a third of Venice's population.

Provenance

Captain Justinian H. Edwards-Heathcote (1843-1928), Betton Hall, Market Drayton, Shropshire, by April 27, 1928;

Purchased at his sale, Old Pictures, Christie’s, London, April 27, 1928, lot 13, by Frank Sabin, London, 1928;

With Durlacher Brothers, New York, by May 1930;

Purchased from Durlacher by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1930.

Published References

Catalogue of Old Pictures: The Property of the Late J.H.E. Heathcote, Esq. of Betton Court, Market Drayton, Cheshire, Also Ancient and Modern Pictures and Drawings, the Property of Mrs. Rider And from Other Sources (London: Christie, Manson, and Woods, April 27, 1928), 5.

“Nelson Museum Puts $500,000 More Into Art,” [New York] Herald Tribune (May 20, 1930): 15

Art News 28 (May 31, 1930): 5, (repro.).

Carlyle Burrows, “Letter from New York,” Apollo 12 (July-December 1930): 289-99.

Arthur Comb, Exhibition of Italian Painting of the Sei-and Settecento, exh. cat. (Hartford: Wadsworth Atheneum, 1930), 12, (repro.).

Alfred M. Frankfurter, “Paintings in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art,” in “The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art, Kansas City Special Number,” Art News 32, no. 10 (December 9, 1933): 29-30.

The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Handbook of the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1933), 21, (repro.).

Arthur Kilgore McComb, The Baroque Painters of Italy: An Introductory Historical Survey (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1934), 124.

“Special Loan Exhibition of Venetian Painting of the Eighteenth Century,” Bulletin of the City Art Museum of St. Louis 21, no. 2 (March 1936): 25.

J. L. Clarke, Francesco Guardi, 1712-1793, exh. cat. (Springfield, MA: Springfield Museum of Fine Arts, 1937), unpaginated, (repro.).

Tiepolo and His Contemporaries, exh. cat. (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1938), unpaginated, (repro.).

The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, The William Rockhill Nelson Collection, 2^nd ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1941), 32, (repro.).

Venice in the Eighteenth Century, exh. cat. (Cambridge, MA: Fogg Museum of Art, 1948), unpaginated.

The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, The William Rockhill Nelson Collection, 3^rd ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1949), 48, (repro.).

Renaissance and Baroque Art, exh. cat. (Seattle: Seattle Art Museum, 1950), 11.

A Tour of Famous Cities, exh. cat. (Columbus: Gallery of Fine Arts, 1952), unpaginated.

“The Century of Mozart,” Bulletin (The Nelson Gallery and Atkins Museum) 1, no. 1 (January 15-March 4, 1956): 28.

John D. Morse, A Comprehensive Guide: Old Masters in America: More than two-thousand paintings in United States and Canada by forty famous artists (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1955), 97.

Ross E. Taggart, ed., Handbook of the Collections in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 4^th ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1959), 74, (repro.).

Rolf Kultzen, “Ein neuer Guardi für die Alte Pinakothek,” Pantheon 4 (1967): 270.

Venise au dix-huitième siècle: peintures, dessins et gravures des collections françaises, exh. cat. (Paris: Réunion des Musées nationaux, 1971), 83.

Ralph T. Coe, “The Baroque and Rococo in France and Italy,” Apollo 96, no. 130 (December 1972): 540, (repro.) [repr. in Denys Sutton, ed., William Rockhill Nelson Gallery, Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Kansas City (London: Apollo Magazine, 1972), 71, (repro.)].

Burton B. Fredericksen and Frederico Zeri, Census of Pre-Nineteenth-Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1972), 96, 589.

Antonio Morassi, Guardi: L’opera completa di Antonio e Francesco Guardi, vol. 1 (Venice: Alfieri, [1973]), no. 473, pp. 243-244, 399, 400, (repro.).

Ross E. Taggart and George L. McKenna, eds., Handbook of the Collections in The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Kansas City, Missouri, vol. 1, Art of the Occident, 5^th ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Museum of Fine Arts, 1973), 140-141, (repro.).

Luigina Rossi Bortolatto, L’opera completa di Francesco Guardi (Milan: Rizzoli, 1974), no. 292, p. 107, (repro.).

John D. Morse, Old Master Paintings in North America (New York: Abbeville Press, 1979), 160.

Ross E. Taggart and Roger B. Ward, City Views, exh. cat. (Kansas City, MO.: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1983), 11.

Meinolf Trudzinski and Bernd Schätlicke, Venedigs Ruhm in Norden: Die groβen venezianischen Maler des 18 Jahrhunderts, ihre Auftraggeber und ihre Sammler,exh. cat. (Hannover: Niedersächsisches Landesmuseum, 1991), 154, (repro.).

Michael Churchman and Scott Erbes, High Ideals and Aspirations: The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1933-1993 (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1993), 25.

Kristie C. Wolferman, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: Culture Comes to Kansas City (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1993), 92, 130.

Elliot W. Rowlands, The Collections of The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: Italian Paintings, 1300-1800 (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1996), 15, 17, 459-462, (repro.).

Information about a particular artwork or image, including provenance information, is based upon historic information and may not be currently accurate or complete. Research on artwork and images is an ongoing process, and the information about a particular artwork or image may not reflect the most current information available to the Museum. If you notice a mistake or have additional information about a particular artwork or image, please e-mail provenance@nelson-atkins.org.