Canaletto

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Canaletto
1697-1768
The South Pulpit in San Marco, Venice
Pen and brown ink, over lead point or graphite, on laid paper.
11 1/2 x 7 1/2 inches (295 x 191 mm)
Gift of János Scholz.
1977.52

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Watermark: three crescents, in descending order. Watermark, beta radiograph. crescents. 141083wm_1977_52_WM_beta.jpg
This diagrammatic rendering of the interior of San Marco may have been drawn on the spot. It served as a study for another, similarly abbreviated sketch, which Canaletto in turn used as the basis for a more finished drawing in pen and wash that is now in the Kunsthalle, Hamburg. That sheet, in which the crossing and transept are populated with musicians and singers, is signed and dated 1766. It also bears an inscription in which the artist boasts that, although he had attained the ripe age of sixty-eight, he still did not need to wear glasses. --Exhibition Label, from "Tiepolo, Guardi, and Their World: Eighteenth-Century Venetian Drawings"

Inscription: 

Inscribed at lower right, in pen and brown ink, "21"; on verso in black chalk, "Schizzo...original, di Anto, Canal, detto il Canaletto. V8V[?]".

Provenance: 
Italico Brass, Venice; János Scholz, New York (see Lugt S. 2933b).
Associated names: 

Brass, Italico, 1870-1943, former owner.
Scholz, János, former owner.

Bibliography: 

Stampfle, Felice, and Jacob Bean. Drawings from New York collections. III: The eighteenth century in Italy. New York : Metropolitan Museum of Art : Pierpont Morgan Library, 1971, no. 159, repr.
Scholz, Janos. Italian Master Drawings, 1350-1800, from the János Scholz Collection. New York : Dover, 1976, no. 143, repr.
Ryskamp, Charles, ed. Eighteenth Report to the Fellows of the Pierpont Morgan Library, 1975-1977. New York : Pierpont Morgan Library, 1978, p. 255.

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