.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
Once part of the picture gallery at Shanganagh Castle, near Bray, this unpublished view of the Molo is a fine addition to the oeuvre of Marieschi. Taken from a viewpoint opposite St. Mark’s Campanile and showing the Bacino di San Marco on a receding diagonal perspective, from the eastern bays of the Zecca on the left, past St. Mark’s Square and the Doge’s Palace to the Prigioni on the right, it is the most enduring and popular of all Venetian vedute. Marieschi treated this precise view on at least seven occasions between 1736 and 1741, with the recorded variants differing in both size and incidental detail, allowing for the spirit and mood of the picture to change by varying the number and position of the boats, together with the cast of figures (see R. Toledano, Michele Marieschi, Milan, 1995, pp. 40-4). Here a relative calm is maintained: with the Bucintoro moored, and two gondolas steering into view from left and right, the dappled light glints across the waves, as the clear waters allow for the refection of the Doge’s Palace to be visible. It is a serene staging of an iconic view.
The limited facts surrounding Marieschi’s life – which ended when he was barely forty-three – are well-known. He is thought to have trained and practised as a set-designer until turning his hand to vedute, establishing his reputation as a view painter by the mid-1730s and adding lustre to the genre with his lively use of brushwork. Few of his view pictures have early recorded provenance, and his only known patron was the great collector Count Johannes Matthias von der Schulenburg. It has also been established with near certainty that Marieschi focused his energies exclusively on painting landscape and architecture, working in tandem with a number of different figure painters to complete the staffage in his vedute: amongst them Gaspare Diziani, Francesco Simonini and Giovanni Antonio Guardi. It is the latter’s hand at work here in the colourfully-executed figures on the boats. We are grateful to Ralph Toledano for confirming the attribution to Marieschi, and the involvement of Guardi, on the basis of photographs.
Undoubtedly a highly desirable picture for a grand tourist, the work formed part of the collection of General Sir George Cockburn (1763-1847) and was hung at his home in Shanganagh Castle. Not to be confused with his contemporary namesake, the 10th Baronet and Admiral of the Fleet, Cockburn was possessed of an adventurous spirit and an inveterate taste for collecting. He travelled widely as he moved up the ranks during the Napoleonic Wars, acquiring antiquities, pictures and sculpture along the way, especially during visits to Italy. After military service, he devoted himself to politics and was an active voice arguing in favour of democratic reform. Cockburn bought Shanganagh Castle in circa 1805, and promptly organised for the façade to be extensively re-ftted to suit neo-Gothic taste, a project completed under the guidance of Sir Richard Morrison. A picture gallery with top lighting was installed too – presumably where this picture was displayed. When the contents of the castle were dispersed in a sale in 1936, University College, Dublin, acquired a number of antiquities that form the basis of their collection today.
The limited facts surrounding Marieschi’s life – which ended when he was barely forty-three – are well-known. He is thought to have trained and practised as a set-designer until turning his hand to vedute, establishing his reputation as a view painter by the mid-1730s and adding lustre to the genre with his lively use of brushwork. Few of his view pictures have early recorded provenance, and his only known patron was the great collector Count Johannes Matthias von der Schulenburg. It has also been established with near certainty that Marieschi focused his energies exclusively on painting landscape and architecture, working in tandem with a number of different figure painters to complete the staffage in his vedute: amongst them Gaspare Diziani, Francesco Simonini and Giovanni Antonio Guardi. It is the latter’s hand at work here in the colourfully-executed figures on the boats. We are grateful to Ralph Toledano for confirming the attribution to Marieschi, and the involvement of Guardi, on the basis of photographs.
Undoubtedly a highly desirable picture for a grand tourist, the work formed part of the collection of General Sir George Cockburn (1763-1847) and was hung at his home in Shanganagh Castle. Not to be confused with his contemporary namesake, the 10th Baronet and Admiral of the Fleet, Cockburn was possessed of an adventurous spirit and an inveterate taste for collecting. He travelled widely as he moved up the ranks during the Napoleonic Wars, acquiring antiquities, pictures and sculpture along the way, especially during visits to Italy. After military service, he devoted himself to politics and was an active voice arguing in favour of democratic reform. Cockburn bought Shanganagh Castle in circa 1805, and promptly organised for the façade to be extensively re-ftted to suit neo-Gothic taste, a project completed under the guidance of Sir Richard Morrison. A picture gallery with top lighting was installed too – presumably where this picture was displayed. When the contents of the castle were dispersed in a sale in 1936, University College, Dublin, acquired a number of antiquities that form the basis of their collection today.