.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
拍品专文
Antonio Canaletto turned to etching at the height of his popularity as a painter, when his virtuoso Venetian views were in great demand, especially with the many English aristocratic visitors who passed through the city on the Grand Tour. This lucrative stream of commissions made both his reputation and his fortune, but may have also resulted in the increasingly formulaic style of his later paintings, which John Ruskin scathingly described as 'miserable, heartless, virtueless mechanism' (Bromberg, p. XI).
It can only be speculated why Canaletto at this point in his career decided to create a series of etched views, it is however likely that his patron Joseph Smith (circa 1674-1770) commissioned the prints. A renowned collector, art dealer and agent, Smith was the British Consul to Venice, and spent almost his entire life there, from the early 1700s until the year of his death. He is known to have had an interest in printmaking, having commissioned a series of engravings by Antonio Visentini (1688-1782) after Canaletto's paintings of Venice in his own collection. Whether the initiative to create a set of etched vedute came from the artist himself or from his patron is not documented. In any case, when the series was ready for publication, Canaletto dedicated it to 'Giuseppe Smith/ Console di S. M. Britannica', as the inscription on the title page reads. It is also uncertain when exactly the plates were etched; only one plate, the later divided Imaginary View of Venice (B. 12) bears the date 1741. The exact date of publication is not known, but it must have been after 6 June 1744, the day Joseph Smith was appointed Consul to Venice, and probably before Canaletto's departure for England in 1746.
Whatever its genesis, the Vedute marked a change in the artist's style and attitude. Unusually for an artist who had made his reputation with views of Venice, it comprises relatively few of the famous sites of the city. Instead, he turned to more vernacular, picturesque buildings, courtyards and views of Venice and other towns and places in the Veneto, whether real or fictitious. Instead of topographical accuracy, his etchings betray a renewed interest in the atmospheric, ephemeral aspects of the city, in the play of light and shade on the canals and facades, which he depicted with nervous, quivering lines.
Viscount Norwich eloquently described the effect the etchings seem to have had on the artist: 'All the youthful vigour has returned, the freedom of fancy and line, all the imagination and invention that material success had whittled away. The verticals no longer betray the draughtsman's T-Square, the figures are real people once more, not just short-hand blobs put in to prevent the places looking deserted. New disciplines and techniques demanded a new eye, a new approach to problems of light and shade. Canaletto was himself again...' (Viscount Norwich, Foreword, in: Bromberg, p. XI).
As a rule, Marianne and Alan Schwartz did not collect series of prints. Instead, they focused on finding prime examples of the artist in question while at the same time avoiding the obvious. Thus, Goya's Caprichos are represented by one single plate (see lot 28), and of Canaletto's Vedute they chose the present, exquisite proof impression of the Imaginary View of Padua. It shows Canaletto at his very best. No other of the Italian vedutisti could create a view so full of atmosphere, light, texture, human activity and a sense of place in the medium of etching.
There are only four recorded impressions of the first state of the print, including the present example: Bromberg records two (Gabinetto Nazionale delle Stampe, Rome; and Museum of Fine Arts, Boston), to which we can add the impression at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. The present sheet bears a Crossbow watermark similar to the one found by Bromberg in the impression in Boston.
It can only be speculated why Canaletto at this point in his career decided to create a series of etched views, it is however likely that his patron Joseph Smith (circa 1674-1770) commissioned the prints. A renowned collector, art dealer and agent, Smith was the British Consul to Venice, and spent almost his entire life there, from the early 1700s until the year of his death. He is known to have had an interest in printmaking, having commissioned a series of engravings by Antonio Visentini (1688-1782) after Canaletto's paintings of Venice in his own collection. Whether the initiative to create a set of etched vedute came from the artist himself or from his patron is not documented. In any case, when the series was ready for publication, Canaletto dedicated it to 'Giuseppe Smith/ Console di S. M. Britannica', as the inscription on the title page reads. It is also uncertain when exactly the plates were etched; only one plate, the later divided Imaginary View of Venice (B. 12) bears the date 1741. The exact date of publication is not known, but it must have been after 6 June 1744, the day Joseph Smith was appointed Consul to Venice, and probably before Canaletto's departure for England in 1746.
Whatever its genesis, the Vedute marked a change in the artist's style and attitude. Unusually for an artist who had made his reputation with views of Venice, it comprises relatively few of the famous sites of the city. Instead, he turned to more vernacular, picturesque buildings, courtyards and views of Venice and other towns and places in the Veneto, whether real or fictitious. Instead of topographical accuracy, his etchings betray a renewed interest in the atmospheric, ephemeral aspects of the city, in the play of light and shade on the canals and facades, which he depicted with nervous, quivering lines.
Viscount Norwich eloquently described the effect the etchings seem to have had on the artist: 'All the youthful vigour has returned, the freedom of fancy and line, all the imagination and invention that material success had whittled away. The verticals no longer betray the draughtsman's T-Square, the figures are real people once more, not just short-hand blobs put in to prevent the places looking deserted. New disciplines and techniques demanded a new eye, a new approach to problems of light and shade. Canaletto was himself again...' (Viscount Norwich, Foreword, in: Bromberg, p. XI).
As a rule, Marianne and Alan Schwartz did not collect series of prints. Instead, they focused on finding prime examples of the artist in question while at the same time avoiding the obvious. Thus, Goya's Caprichos are represented by one single plate (see lot 28), and of Canaletto's Vedute they chose the present, exquisite proof impression of the Imaginary View of Padua. It shows Canaletto at his very best. No other of the Italian vedutisti could create a view so full of atmosphere, light, texture, human activity and a sense of place in the medium of etching.
There are only four recorded impressions of the first state of the print, including the present example: Bromberg records two (Gabinetto Nazionale delle Stampe, Rome; and Museum of Fine Arts, Boston), to which we can add the impression at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. The present sheet bears a Crossbow watermark similar to the one found by Bromberg in the impression in Boston.