Canaletto

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Canaletto
1697-1768
Capriccio with a Round Tower and Ruins by the Lagoon
Pen and brown ink, with gray wash, over black chalk, on paper; double-ruled border in pen and brown ink.
10 15/16 x 16 7/8 inches (277 x 430 mm)
Purchased on the Sunny Crawford von Bülow Fund 1978.
1983.76
Notes: 

Watermark: letter IV (cf. Churchill 425).
In Rome, Venice, and other European capitals, eighteenth-century painters recorded the built environment in topographical views (vedute or vedute esatte), as well as in imaginary architectural compositions called capricci. Venice, with its majestic architecture and unique setting, was a particularly apt subject, and Canaletto and Francesco Guardi were the leading suppliers of such images. The imaginary view in this drawing, rendered with characteristic precision, corresponds to none of Canaletto's paintings but was engraved in reverse by Fabio Berardi (1728-1788). The majority of the artist's clients were English grand tourists, and the drawing probably was made for sale to a foreign collector. --Exhibition Label, from "Tiepolo, Guardi, and Their World: Eighteenth-Century Venetian Drawings"

Inscription: 

Signed(?) by the artist at lower left, in pen and brown ink, "Antonio Canal del".

Provenance: 
Marquis of Lansdowne; his sale, London, Sotheby's, 25 March, 1920, lot 14, repr. (to Ellis & Smith for £200); private collection, France; private collection, Washington, D.C.; acquired from E.V. Thaw and Co., New York.
Associated names: 

Lansdowne, Marquis of, former owner.

Bibliography: 

W. G. Constable. Canaletto: Giovanni Antonio Canal, 1697-1768. Oxford, 1976 (2nd ed. rev. by J. G. Links), no. 806, repr.
Ryskamp, Charles, ed. Twentieth Report to the Fellows of the Pierpont Morgan Library, 1981-1983. New York : Pierpont Morgan Library, 1984, p. 246.

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