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Lot Essay
These fine views of Venice, showing the Republic’s single most celebrated tourist attraction, are among the earliest vedute painted by Francesco Guardi. The two canvases already reveal Guardi's highly individual approach to vedute painting, displaying his ability to capture the transient effects of light and atmosphere, a life-long obsession that would result in some of the most poetic images of La Serenissima in the eighteenth-century. This pair was almost certainly acquired by John Montagu, Lord Brudenell, subsequently Marquess of Monthermer (1735-70), who was one of the group of English patrons to secure vedute from Guardi in the late 1750s.
Lord Brudenell was the only son of George Brudenell, 4th Earl of Cardigan by his wife Mary, daughter of John, 2nd Duke of Montagu. The Dukedom of Montagu was revived for Lord Cardigan in 1766, and thereafter Brudenell was given the courtesy title of Marquess of Monthermer. Educated at Eton, he was sent to study in Paris in 1751, accompanied by his tutor Henry Lyte. After three years in the city, he set out on an extensive Grand Tour with Lyte: he was in Genoa in December 1754; in Rome in April 1756, en route for Naples, from where he travelled to Sicily and Malta; back in Rome for most of 1758; in Venice by 21 September 1758, and left on 24 February 1760.
As Lyte's letters to Lord Cardigan show, Brudenell soon began to acquire marbles and pictures through the cicerone Thomas Jenkins, spending over £2,000 on such acquisitions in 1758 alone. He sat to both Pompeo Batoni and Anton Raphael Mengs for portraits, which are now in the Buccleuch collection at Boughton. He evidently commissioned a series of thirty-eight views of towns in France and Italy visited on his tour from Antonio Joli, very probably in 1757 (sixteen of which are at Beaulieu and eight at Bowhill; the remainder were sold from the Beaulieu collection at Christie's, London in 1958 and 1973), as well as views of Vesuvius and the Naples coast from Carlo Bonavia, of which the former is dated 1757, respectively at Beaulieu and Bowhill (see F. Russell, The Treasure Houses of Britain, exhibition catalogue, Washington, National Gallery of Art, 1985-86, p. 256, under no. 175).
These two pictures are smaller than the other Buccleuch Guardis: The Giudecca Canal with the Zattere and The Fondamenta Nuove measure 28 1/8 x 46 7/8 in. (see A. Morassi, Guardi, Venice, 1973, I, nos. 620 and 616); while two views of the Grand Canal and one of the Rialto measure 18 ½ x 33 in. (ibid., nos. 514, 553, and 561); and the Grand Canal with the Rialto from the West is of intermediate size, 24 ¼ x 38 in. (ibid., no. 523). Other works supplied to tourists who were in Italy at the same time as Brudenell – Sir Brooke Bridges and Richard Milles of Nackington – are of the same formats (see F. Russell, ‘Francesco Guardi and the English Tourist’, The Burlington Magazine, January 1996, pp. 4-11). The fact that Brudenell acquired pictures of differing sizes suggests that he purchased works that happened to be available in the studio rather than placing a single commission. The dimensions of these two canvases would become a standard size (see Morassi, op. cit., nos. 280, 315, 605, 606, 617, 639 and 640). Stylistically they are perhaps the earliest in date of the Brudenell-Buccleuch series.
After his return to England, Brudenell became a Member of Parliament for Marlborough in 1761, a pocket borough of his uncle Lord Bruce, and a year later, the barony of Montagu of Boughton was revived in his favour. He continued to add to his collection, which was kept at Montagu House in London and achieved some fame. Elected to the Society of Dilettanti in 1761, he attended the banquet that followed the first assembly of the newly founded Royal Academy in 1769. He never married, and as a result of his death from consumption in 1770 Boughton and Montagu House were inherited by the sons of his sister Elizabeth, Countess of Dalkeith, later Duchess of Buccleuch.
The inventory numbers on the stretchers are those of Ditton Park in Slough, which was inherited by the 1st Lord Montagu of Beaulieu from his father the 5th Duke of Buccleuch.
Lord Brudenell was the only son of George Brudenell, 4th Earl of Cardigan by his wife Mary, daughter of John, 2nd Duke of Montagu. The Dukedom of Montagu was revived for Lord Cardigan in 1766, and thereafter Brudenell was given the courtesy title of Marquess of Monthermer. Educated at Eton, he was sent to study in Paris in 1751, accompanied by his tutor Henry Lyte. After three years in the city, he set out on an extensive Grand Tour with Lyte: he was in Genoa in December 1754; in Rome in April 1756, en route for Naples, from where he travelled to Sicily and Malta; back in Rome for most of 1758; in Venice by 21 September 1758, and left on 24 February 1760.
As Lyte's letters to Lord Cardigan show, Brudenell soon began to acquire marbles and pictures through the cicerone Thomas Jenkins, spending over £2,000 on such acquisitions in 1758 alone. He sat to both Pompeo Batoni and Anton Raphael Mengs for portraits, which are now in the Buccleuch collection at Boughton. He evidently commissioned a series of thirty-eight views of towns in France and Italy visited on his tour from Antonio Joli, very probably in 1757 (sixteen of which are at Beaulieu and eight at Bowhill; the remainder were sold from the Beaulieu collection at Christie's, London in 1958 and 1973), as well as views of Vesuvius and the Naples coast from Carlo Bonavia, of which the former is dated 1757, respectively at Beaulieu and Bowhill (see F. Russell, The Treasure Houses of Britain, exhibition catalogue, Washington, National Gallery of Art, 1985-86, p. 256, under no. 175).
These two pictures are smaller than the other Buccleuch Guardis: The Giudecca Canal with the Zattere and The Fondamenta Nuove measure 28 1/8 x 46 7/8 in. (see A. Morassi, Guardi, Venice, 1973, I, nos. 620 and 616); while two views of the Grand Canal and one of the Rialto measure 18 ½ x 33 in. (ibid., nos. 514, 553, and 561); and the Grand Canal with the Rialto from the West is of intermediate size, 24 ¼ x 38 in. (ibid., no. 523). Other works supplied to tourists who were in Italy at the same time as Brudenell – Sir Brooke Bridges and Richard Milles of Nackington – are of the same formats (see F. Russell, ‘Francesco Guardi and the English Tourist’, The Burlington Magazine, January 1996, pp. 4-11). The fact that Brudenell acquired pictures of differing sizes suggests that he purchased works that happened to be available in the studio rather than placing a single commission. The dimensions of these two canvases would become a standard size (see Morassi, op. cit., nos. 280, 315, 605, 606, 617, 639 and 640). Stylistically they are perhaps the earliest in date of the Brudenell-Buccleuch series.
After his return to England, Brudenell became a Member of Parliament for Marlborough in 1761, a pocket borough of his uncle Lord Bruce, and a year later, the barony of Montagu of Boughton was revived in his favour. He continued to add to his collection, which was kept at Montagu House in London and achieved some fame. Elected to the Society of Dilettanti in 1761, he attended the banquet that followed the first assembly of the newly founded Royal Academy in 1769. He never married, and as a result of his death from consumption in 1770 Boughton and Montagu House were inherited by the sons of his sister Elizabeth, Countess of Dalkeith, later Duchess of Buccleuch.
The inventory numbers on the stretchers are those of Ditton Park in Slough, which was inherited by the 1st Lord Montagu of Beaulieu from his father the 5th Duke of Buccleuch.