Giovanni Antonio Canal, called Canaletto, Study of a Merchant Vessel & An Architectural Capriccio with a Pavilion

Giovanni Antonio Canal, called Canaletto (Venice 1697 - 1768), Study of a Merchant Vessel. photo Sotheby's

Pen and brown ink and gray and brown wash over black chalk; bears inscription in brown ink: Canaleto. 9 5/8 by 7 1/2 in; 244 by 191 mm. Estimate 200,000—300,000 USD. Lot Sold. 542,500 USD

PROVENANCE: Claudio Argentieri (L.486b);
Pier Giulio Breschi (L.2079b);
Sale, London, Sotheby's, 18 November 1982, lot 70;
Sale, London, Sotheby's, 4 July 1988, lot 104

LITERATURE AND REFERENCES: W.G. Constable, revised by J.G. Links, Canaletto, Oxford 1989, vol. II, p. 621, under no. 852, reproduced vol. I, pl. 223

NOTE: Drawings of boats by Canaletto are very rare. One other, showing an anchored Venetian sloop, was formerly in the collection of Sir Bruce Ingram, and is extremely similar in handling to the present work.¹ Also similar in conception, though apparently rather dryer in technique, is a Study of a War Galley, in Berlin, which Constable and Links catalogued as Canaletto with some reservations.²

The present drawing is, however, the only one of the three to include a figure, and the characteristic handling of this feature, together with the treatment of light on the water and of details such as the weeds hanging from the mooring ropes, confirm the traditional attribution to Canaletto. Particularly comparable in these respects are, for example, the View of Venice from the Punta della Mota, in the Royal Collection at Windsor Castle, and the London: the Thames, looking towards Westminster from near York Watergate, at Yale.³

A boat similar to the one seen here appears in Canaletto's painting of The Bacino di San Marco: looking East, in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.⁴

1. Sold, London, Sotheby's, 11 December 1974, lot 59; see A. Bettagno, et al., Canaletto, exhib. cat., Venice, Fondazione Giorgio Cini, 1982, cat. 23
2. Constable/Links, op. cit., cat. 852, reproduced pl. 161
3. Constable/Links, op. cit., cats 522 and 747
4. See Canaletto, exhib. cat., New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1989, cat. 51

Giovanni Antonio Canal, called Canaletto (Venice 1697 - 1768), An Architectural Capriccio with a Pavilion and a Ruined Arcade on the Water's Edge. photo Sotheby's

Pen and brown ink and gray wash over black chalk.

Signed or bears signature below the framing line: Antonio Canal del. 12 1/4 by 17 1/4 in.; 305 by 438 mm. Estimate 250,000—350,000 USD. Lot Sold. 302,500 USD

PROVENANCE: Sale, London, Sotheby's, 23 May 1922, lot 45 (£66);
with Parsons, London;
Sir Chester Beatty;
Viscountess Powerscourt, her sale and others, London, Sotheby's, 1 July 1971, lot 38 (£5800 to Tan Bunzl);
The Edinburg collection,
sale, New York, Sotheby's, 12 November 1987, lot 107

LITERATURE AND REFERENCES: W.G. Constable, in the Burlington Magazine, June 1923, p. 248, illus.;
idem, Canaletto, Oxford 1962, vol. I, pl. 155; vol. 2, pp. 558-59, no. 823;
Stefan Kozakiewicz, Bernardo Bellotto, 1972, vol. II, p. 488, under no. Z398;
W.G. Constable, revised by J. G. Links, Canaletto, 1976, vol. 1, pl. 155, vol. II, p. 608, no. 823;
André Corboz, Canaletto, 1985, vol. II, p. 737, no. D132, illus. (as between 1747-1755);
W.G. Constable, revised by J.G. Links, Canaletto, Oxford 1989, vol. I, pl. 155; vol. II, p. 608, no. 823

NOTE: As well as his well-known and admired precise topographical views of Italian and English locations, Canaletto produced many capricci, both drawn and painted, using fragments of ruined classical architecture in attractive compositions, often with watery settings. He often used the same elements in several works: for example, the pillared portico seen from the side, at the right edge of this study, appears in two other drawings, Constable nos. 824, 825. Another drawing of the whole composition, with some differences, and unknown to Constable, appeared on the London art market in 1984.¹ Constable identified two painted compositions, known in several versions, with the elements of this drawing: his cat. no. 511 which is very similar and of the same proportions, and no. 512 which extends to the left and includes a ruined colonnade.

Corboz dates the drawing between 1747 and 1755; Constable does not give a dating although he confirms that one of the related paintings (his no.512) was probably of 1754. Beddington proposes that the earliest version of the most closely related painting, now in Baltimore (Constable 511(c)) probably predates slightly Canaletto's arrival in England, in 1746, though there is no way of knowing whether the drawing was executed before or after the painting.²

Although Constable and Links did not consider the inscription on this drawing to be autograph, Charles Beddington has kindly pointed out that the name is in the form that Canaletto himself generally used (and no-one else), and that he believes this is very likely an autograph signature.

1. Sale, London, Christie's, 4 July 1984, lot 82; see J. G. Links, A Supplement to W.G. Constable's Canaletto, London 1998, p. 53, no. 825*, illus. pl. 240
2. C. Beddington, Canaletto in England, exhib. cat., New Haven, CT, Yale Center for British Art, and London, Dulwich Picture Gallery, 2006-7, p.173, under no. 59

Sotheby's. Old Master Drawings. 27 Jan 10. New York www.sothebys.com