A port scene with classical ruins and a fountain

Luca Carlevarijs has long been acknowledged as the founder of the Venetian school of view painting, without whose pioneering efforts the vedute of Canaletto, Bellotto and Guardi would have been unthinkable. Born in Udine, Carlevarijs was trained by his father before being orphaned and moving to Venice in 1679 together with his sister. The present canvas, dated to around 1714, is exemplary of Carlevarijs’ early career, which was dominated by the production of capricci of Mediterranean harbor scenes similar to those being created by Northern artists of the period. It was not until later that Carlevarijs began painting views of Venice for the consumption of Grand Tourists.

This large and handsome port scene was originally accompanied by a pendant of identical dimensions, a River landscape with a capriccio view of the Ponte Rotto in a private collection, which bears an identical signature (fig. 1). The composition of the present work, which groups architectural elements to one side, with tranquil water to the other, the low horizon line inviting the viewers’ gaze into the distance, deploys a formula favored by the artist from around 1706, when he executed a similar pair of canvases (one in the Accademia Carrara, Bergamo, inv. no. 6 [925], the other whose location is unknown). As is the case in so many of his early works, Carlevarijs here situates identifiable architectural and sculptural elements within an imaginary harbor scene. Set at an angle, pair of Corinthian columns at right echo those of the Temple of Castor and Pollux in the Roman Forum, while the ruins in the background beyond them derive from the Baths of Caracalla, also in Rome. A drawing for the warship in the water at left is preserved in the Museo Correr in Venice.