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Lot Essay
This is one of a set of four distinguished views of Venice which were painted by Canaletto for Charles Paulet, 3rd Duke of Bolton. It shows on the right, in steep perspective, the medieval Ca’ da Mosto, which at the time was the Albergo del Leon Bianco, the most illustrious hotel in the city and for the English visitor conveniently close to Palazzo Balbi, which the banker and merchant, Joseph Smith (who was Canaletto's principal agent and was shortly to be appointed Consul) had leased since about 1709 and purchased in 1740. Beyond this is the Casa del Dolfin, followed by a number of lesser buildings before the seventeenth-century Palazzo Civran and the Fondaco dei Persiani, which was demolished in 1830, next to the much larger Fondaco dei Tedeschi. By this is the Rialto Bridge (Antonio Da Ponte, 1588-91), at the heart of commercial Venice. In front of this, on the right bank, are the Palazzo dei Camerlenghi of 1525-8, the Fabbriche Vecchie of 1520-2, the Erbaria (vegetable market) and the easternmost five bays of the Fabbriche Nuove of 1554-6 by Sansovino. The picture is bathed in filtered afternoon light.
Although the set was exhibited at the British Institution in 1829 and 1856, this avoided scholarly attention until George Knox’s publication of 1993 (loc. cit.). He had previously been allowed by Major Clarke-Jervoise to copy the following document:
Mem:m from Mr. Seguier to me
1855 J.C.J. 4 Canaletti were painted for the
D. of Bolton then at Venice,
And were purchased at the recommendation of
Mr. Seguier by my father from
Mrs. Poulett who asked the cost price
(£25 for each picture)
According to the receipt she had,
Under the hand of Canaletti, or mem.m of
The D. of Bolton
£100 for the four paintings.
J.C.J [Sir Jeremiah Clarke-Jervoise, 2nd Bt.]
Feb:y 12
1855
The name of the Firm is Messrs. Seguier & Smart
6 Argyle Place,
Regent Street, London
The Seguier in question must have been the restorer John Seguier (1785-1856), younger brother of William Seguier (1771-1843), also a restorer and the first Keeper of the National Gallery. That Paulet was pronounced ‘Poulett’ explains the spelling of the vendor’s name. The document, as Knox recognized, is significant both for establishing the provenance of the set of pictures and for establishing what Canaletto charged in the 1730s.
Canaletto often painted pairs with complementary viewpoints. This was the case with the Bolton set. The view of the Molo
(Constable, op. cit., no. 85**) shows the Ducal Palace and the buildings round it from the south-east, from a point off the Riva dei Schiavoni north of the island of San Giorgio: the same buildings are seen in the distance from the south-west in the Bacino (Constable, op. cit., no. 133*), between the Dogana on the left and San Giorgio on the right. The viewpoints of this picture and the pendant, showing the Grand Canal looking west from Palazzo Civran (Constable, op. cit., no. 233(bb)), are even more closely linked. The Palazzo Civran, its pale façade almost luminous in the Getty picture, commands a view of the buildings to its north-west, from the Fabbriche Vecchie to the Fabbriche Nuove on the left and Ca’ da Mosto on the right, so that the spectator seeing the two pictures could see and place these in relation to each other with an almost three dimensional accuracy. Nonetheless with a characteristic visual acuity, Canaletto ensured a sense of fluidity by not selecting viewpoints that were directly opposite each other. Knox considered that the pendant offers significant evidence for the chronology of the picture: below and to the right of Palazzo Civran is seen what are identified in a related drawing (Constable, op. cit., no. 592*) as the ‘fondamenta’ of a walled yard. Canaletto showed this structure in his closely related picture painted for Smith now in the Royal Collection (Constable, no. 233), which is plausibly dated about 1726-7 (see, most recently, Lucy Whitaker, in the exhibition catalogue, Canaletto & the Art of Venice, London, Royal Collection Trust, 2017, p. 162, under no. 62): This was engraved by Antonio Visentini in 1735 (Prospectus Magni Canalis Venetiarum, VIII). Knox assumed that the Windsor picture was preceded by the ex-Bolton canvas, but the reverse must be the case: the explanation is surely that, as is clear in the Royal Collection picture, the wall had been damaged as the loss of some of the coping stones demonstrates, and presumably had had to be taken down.
The composition is closely related to that of one of the components of the series of twenty views painted for Charles Spencer, 3rd Duke of Marlborough (Constable, op. cit., no. 240), now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, in which seven and a half rather than five bays of the Fabbriche Nuove are shown. That picture is of the smaller—18¾ by 30½ inch—format that Canaletto used more frequently. Characteristically Canaletto varied his viewpoint slightly and animated the canal with different shipping. The Marlborough pictures are generally dated about 1736 and the Bolton set is very probably of about 1737: a terminus ante quem of about 1738 for this picture can be presumed because it was copied—as Charles Beddington recognized (op. cit., 2004)—by Canaletto's nephew, the young Bellotto, in a drawing at Darmstadt and in the picture of almost identical size formerly owned by Rudolf Kahn in Paris and subsequently by H.P. Oppenheimer which is now in an American collection (Constable, op. cit., no. 240 (c); S. Kozakiewicz, Bernardo Bellotto genannt Canaletto, Recklinghausen, 1972, II, p. 18, no. 16; Beddington, op. cit., 2004, fig. 15). The topography in the latter corresponds very precisely but the recession of the buildings on the right was handled less successfully by the nephew, whose boats copy Canaletto’s but are slightly enlarged so that the sense of space is diminished. Beddington in 2004 analyzed the relationship between the two pictures and plausibly suggests that the uncle’s was ‘painted before Bellotto’s eyes’ (loc. cit., p. 667). The young Bellotto studied the Bolton series with close attention. His spirited copy of the companion view of the Molo was sold at Christie’s, London, 4 July 2019, lot 40 (Constable, op. cit., p. 226) was based on a further drawing formerly at Darmstadt; while his copy of the companion of the Bacino (Constable, op. cit., no. 135) was recognized by Beddington (op. cit., p. 667, note 20).
Constable regarded a related picture in the Accademia Carrara, Bergamo (op. cit., no. 240 (a), of which there is no trace in the most recent catalogue of that collection) as an autograph work of the 1730s and records another in the Wharton collection as a collaborative work (op. cit., no. 240 (b)).
As Knox recognized, Seguier’s memorandum established what Canaletto charged for pictures of this scale, although he believed that these were painted rather earlier than the stylistic evidence would suggest.
Charles Paulet, later 3rd Duke of Bolton for whom the set was painted had, as Marquess of Winchester, spent an extended period on the continent with his neighbor Anthony Ashley in 1700-4. He subsequently had a military career and was a Member of Parliament until 1717 when he was created Lord Paulett of Basing. He succeeded his father as Duke of Bolton in 1722, holding extensive estates in both Hampshire and Yorkshire. A Whig, he held a number of offices before being dismissed in 1733 for voting with the opposition. He was a founding governor of the Foundling Hospital in 1739, and after mending his fences with Sir Robert Walpole was reappointed to most of his offices in 1742. His marriage to Lady Anne Vaughan, daughter of the 3rd Earl of Carbery, was unhappy and in or before 1728 he entered into a long liaison with the celebrated actress, Lavinia Fenton (1708-1760), best known for her performances as Polly Peacham in Gay’s Beggar’s Opera. They had three sons and eventually were married at Aix-en-Provence in 1752.
The ‘Mrs. Poulett’ from whom the pictures were purchased by Sir Samuel Clarke-Jervoise was presumably the widow or daughter-in-law of one of the Boltons’ sons, Charles (1728-1809), best known for his role in helping to codify the Laws of Cricket in 1774, Percy and Horatio. The Clarke-Jervoises had a substantial estate in Hampshire. That their set of views by Canaletto was exhibited no less than three times at the British Institution offers evidence of the continuing popularity of the artist’s work in England.
Although the set was exhibited at the British Institution in 1829 and 1856, this avoided scholarly attention until George Knox’s publication of 1993 (loc. cit.). He had previously been allowed by Major Clarke-Jervoise to copy the following document:
Mem:m from Mr. Seguier to me
1855 J.C.J. 4 Canaletti were painted for the
D. of Bolton then at Venice,
And were purchased at the recommendation of
Mr. Seguier by my father from
Mrs. Poulett who asked the cost price
(£25 for each picture)
According to the receipt she had,
Under the hand of Canaletti, or mem.m of
The D. of Bolton
£100 for the four paintings.
J.C.J [Sir Jeremiah Clarke-Jervoise, 2nd Bt.]
Feb:y 12
1855
The name of the Firm is Messrs. Seguier & Smart
6 Argyle Place,
Regent Street, London
The Seguier in question must have been the restorer John Seguier (1785-1856), younger brother of William Seguier (1771-1843), also a restorer and the first Keeper of the National Gallery. That Paulet was pronounced ‘Poulett’ explains the spelling of the vendor’s name. The document, as Knox recognized, is significant both for establishing the provenance of the set of pictures and for establishing what Canaletto charged in the 1730s.
Canaletto often painted pairs with complementary viewpoints. This was the case with the Bolton set. The view of the Molo
(Constable, op. cit., no. 85**) shows the Ducal Palace and the buildings round it from the south-east, from a point off the Riva dei Schiavoni north of the island of San Giorgio: the same buildings are seen in the distance from the south-west in the Bacino (Constable, op. cit., no. 133*), between the Dogana on the left and San Giorgio on the right. The viewpoints of this picture and the pendant, showing the Grand Canal looking west from Palazzo Civran (Constable, op. cit., no. 233(bb)), are even more closely linked. The Palazzo Civran, its pale façade almost luminous in the Getty picture, commands a view of the buildings to its north-west, from the Fabbriche Vecchie to the Fabbriche Nuove on the left and Ca’ da Mosto on the right, so that the spectator seeing the two pictures could see and place these in relation to each other with an almost three dimensional accuracy. Nonetheless with a characteristic visual acuity, Canaletto ensured a sense of fluidity by not selecting viewpoints that were directly opposite each other. Knox considered that the pendant offers significant evidence for the chronology of the picture: below and to the right of Palazzo Civran is seen what are identified in a related drawing (Constable, op. cit., no. 592*) as the ‘fondamenta’ of a walled yard. Canaletto showed this structure in his closely related picture painted for Smith now in the Royal Collection (Constable, no. 233), which is plausibly dated about 1726-7 (see, most recently, Lucy Whitaker, in the exhibition catalogue, Canaletto & the Art of Venice, London, Royal Collection Trust, 2017, p. 162, under no. 62): This was engraved by Antonio Visentini in 1735 (Prospectus Magni Canalis Venetiarum, VIII). Knox assumed that the Windsor picture was preceded by the ex-Bolton canvas, but the reverse must be the case: the explanation is surely that, as is clear in the Royal Collection picture, the wall had been damaged as the loss of some of the coping stones demonstrates, and presumably had had to be taken down.
The composition is closely related to that of one of the components of the series of twenty views painted for Charles Spencer, 3rd Duke of Marlborough (Constable, op. cit., no. 240), now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, in which seven and a half rather than five bays of the Fabbriche Nuove are shown. That picture is of the smaller—18¾ by 30½ inch—format that Canaletto used more frequently. Characteristically Canaletto varied his viewpoint slightly and animated the canal with different shipping. The Marlborough pictures are generally dated about 1736 and the Bolton set is very probably of about 1737: a terminus ante quem of about 1738 for this picture can be presumed because it was copied—as Charles Beddington recognized (op. cit., 2004)—by Canaletto's nephew, the young Bellotto, in a drawing at Darmstadt and in the picture of almost identical size formerly owned by Rudolf Kahn in Paris and subsequently by H.P. Oppenheimer which is now in an American collection (Constable, op. cit., no. 240 (c); S. Kozakiewicz, Bernardo Bellotto genannt Canaletto, Recklinghausen, 1972, II, p. 18, no. 16; Beddington, op. cit., 2004, fig. 15). The topography in the latter corresponds very precisely but the recession of the buildings on the right was handled less successfully by the nephew, whose boats copy Canaletto’s but are slightly enlarged so that the sense of space is diminished. Beddington in 2004 analyzed the relationship between the two pictures and plausibly suggests that the uncle’s was ‘painted before Bellotto’s eyes’ (loc. cit., p. 667). The young Bellotto studied the Bolton series with close attention. His spirited copy of the companion view of the Molo was sold at Christie’s, London, 4 July 2019, lot 40 (Constable, op. cit., p. 226) was based on a further drawing formerly at Darmstadt; while his copy of the companion of the Bacino (Constable, op. cit., no. 135) was recognized by Beddington (op. cit., p. 667, note 20).
Constable regarded a related picture in the Accademia Carrara, Bergamo (op. cit., no. 240 (a), of which there is no trace in the most recent catalogue of that collection) as an autograph work of the 1730s and records another in the Wharton collection as a collaborative work (op. cit., no. 240 (b)).
As Knox recognized, Seguier’s memorandum established what Canaletto charged for pictures of this scale, although he believed that these were painted rather earlier than the stylistic evidence would suggest.
Charles Paulet, later 3rd Duke of Bolton for whom the set was painted had, as Marquess of Winchester, spent an extended period on the continent with his neighbor Anthony Ashley in 1700-4. He subsequently had a military career and was a Member of Parliament until 1717 when he was created Lord Paulett of Basing. He succeeded his father as Duke of Bolton in 1722, holding extensive estates in both Hampshire and Yorkshire. A Whig, he held a number of offices before being dismissed in 1733 for voting with the opposition. He was a founding governor of the Foundling Hospital in 1739, and after mending his fences with Sir Robert Walpole was reappointed to most of his offices in 1742. His marriage to Lady Anne Vaughan, daughter of the 3rd Earl of Carbery, was unhappy and in or before 1728 he entered into a long liaison with the celebrated actress, Lavinia Fenton (1708-1760), best known for her performances as Polly Peacham in Gay’s Beggar’s Opera. They had three sons and eventually were married at Aix-en-Provence in 1752.
The ‘Mrs. Poulett’ from whom the pictures were purchased by Sir Samuel Clarke-Jervoise was presumably the widow or daughter-in-law of one of the Boltons’ sons, Charles (1728-1809), best known for his role in helping to codify the Laws of Cricket in 1774, Percy and Horatio. The Clarke-Jervoises had a substantial estate in Hampshire. That their set of views by Canaletto was exhibited no less than three times at the British Institution offers evidence of the continuing popularity of the artist’s work in England.