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Lot Essay
The present painting and its impressive pendant, View of the Molo towards the Basilica of Santa Maria della Salute (fig. 1, Lucca, Museo Nazionale di Palazzo Mansi), were commissioned by Stefano Conti (1654-1739) in 1706. Conti was a wealthy Lucchese silk and wool merchant who assembled an important collection of Venetian and Bolognese paintings during the first three decades of the eighteenth century. He was advised by Alessandro Marchesini, who was a painter himself and well connected in the artistic circles of Venice.
In 1703 Carlevarijs published a detailed survey of Venetian topography, Le fabbriche, e vedute di Venezia, disegnate, poste in prospettiva, establishing himself as the preeminent architectural view painter of his generation. That folio, which includes three engravings of San Giorgio Maggiore, was seen by Stefano Conti on his first visit to Venice in 1704, and resulted in a handsome commission for Carlevarijs of three pictures (including the present work) upon Conti's return visit to Venice in 1706. Detailed correspondence between the artist and his patron allow for the accurate dating of these pictures, which is otherwise complicated with Carlevarijs' work.
The church in the present view is shown from close-up with an emphasis on the facade, quite different from the earlier engravings Carlevarijs produced, and likely tailored to suit his patron's exacting taste. The pendant View of the Molo and the painting commissioned later that year - of an unknown subject but likely a view of Piazza San Marco - reflect Conti's confidence in the artist. This esteem endured as twenty years later Conti requested two more views by the artist, at which time Marchesini proposed the young Canaletto to fulfill the commission instead.
A detailed inventory of the Conti collection provides provenance information about this picture (archived in the l'Autografoteca Campori della Biblioteca Estente, Modena) revealing that upon Stefano Conti's death his collection passed to his grandson, Carlo Giuseppe Innocenzo. It then appears that it then passed by marriage into the Massoni family through the daughter of Filippo Fatinelli, who was the beneficiary to Carlo Conti (d. 1794), the sole surviving member of the Conti family.
In 1703 Carlevarijs published a detailed survey of Venetian topography, Le fabbriche, e vedute di Venezia, disegnate, poste in prospettiva, establishing himself as the preeminent architectural view painter of his generation. That folio, which includes three engravings of San Giorgio Maggiore, was seen by Stefano Conti on his first visit to Venice in 1704, and resulted in a handsome commission for Carlevarijs of three pictures (including the present work) upon Conti's return visit to Venice in 1706. Detailed correspondence between the artist and his patron allow for the accurate dating of these pictures, which is otherwise complicated with Carlevarijs' work.
The church in the present view is shown from close-up with an emphasis on the facade, quite different from the earlier engravings Carlevarijs produced, and likely tailored to suit his patron's exacting taste. The pendant View of the Molo and the painting commissioned later that year - of an unknown subject but likely a view of Piazza San Marco - reflect Conti's confidence in the artist. This esteem endured as twenty years later Conti requested two more views by the artist, at which time Marchesini proposed the young Canaletto to fulfill the commission instead.
A detailed inventory of the Conti collection provides provenance information about this picture (archived in the l'Autografoteca Campori della Biblioteca Estente, Modena) revealing that upon Stefano Conti's death his collection passed to his grandson, Carlo Giuseppe Innocenzo. It then appears that it then passed by marriage into the Massoni family through the daughter of Filippo Fatinelli, who was the beneficiary to Carlo Conti (d. 1794), the sole surviving member of the Conti family.