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A landscape featuring a building and a tree at the edge of a lagoon as boats come and go

From left, a long wooden pier juts into a harbor at low tide, where at lower right, two men stand in a low boat laden with cargo, steering it with poles. Behind the pier a large tree at center spreads it branches in front of a one story stone building with an angled wooden roof, an arched bell tower, and a wide cupola topped with with statues. In the middle distance, a similar boat ventures further out, and at right, a man stands on the opposite shore with a long pole. In the distance, a tower stands on a further shore, under a bright sunny sky.

Gallery Text

By the mid-eighteenth century, Venice was renowned as the center of vedute, or paintings of views. These pictures were popular with travelers on the Grand Tour. Like postcards or posters, they reminded their owners of their travels; but they also confirmed the worldly status of people whose rooms they adorned. Guardi, one of the greatest painters of this genre, chose the minor island of the Madonnetta to create a poetic — almost melancholy — picture of the lagoon. Although the painting shows the architectural complex on the island in fairly accurate detail as well as the topography of the lagoon with the island of Murano in the distance, Guardi’s treatment of them looks back to the painterly effects of great Venetian masters, such as Titian and Giorgione. Thus the captivating picture is a nuanced amalgamation of things Venetian and not a simple snapshot of the city.

Identification and Creation

Object Number
1959.185
People
Francesco Guardi, Italian (Venice, Italy 1712 - 1793 Venice, Italy)
Title
The Isola della Madonnetta on the Lagoon of Venice
Other Titles
Alternate Title: Island on the Lagoon, The Isola della Madonetta on the Venetian Lagoon
Classification
Paintings
Work Type
painting
Date
c. 1785-1790
Culture
Italian
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/227642

Location

Location
Level 2, Room 2220, European and American Art, 17th–19th century, Rococo and Neoclassicism in the Eighteenth Century
View this object's location on our interactive map

Physical Descriptions

Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
sight: 35.6 x 55.2 cm (14 x 21 3/4 in.)
frame: 55.5 x 75.5 x 6.3 cm (21 7/8 x 29 3/4 x 2 1/2 in.)

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History
Richard Wallace, Paris (? - 1938), sold; [through unidentified intermediary]; to [Wildenstein, Paris, (1938 - 1945)] sold; to Charles E. Dunlap, New York, gift; to Fogg Art Museum 1959.

Notes:
Dates of acquisition from R. Wallace and sale to Dunlap provided by Wildenstein, per correspondence in the spring of 2010.

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line
Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Gift of Charles E. Dunlap
Accession Year
1959
Object Number
1959.185
Division
European and American Art
Contact
am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu
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Publication History

  • Hermann W. Williams, "Drawings and Related Paintings By Francesco Guardi", The Art Quarterly, Detroit Institute of Arts (Detroit, 1939), II, no. 3, p. 272, note 14
  • H. Travers Newton, "A Technical Comparison of Three Paintings by Francesco Guardi: Isola de Madonnetta, Canale della Giudecca con le Zattere, and Capricio: Landscape in Ruins" (thesis (certificate in conservation), Straus Center for Conservation and Technical Studies, 1979), Unpublished, pp. 1-22 passim
  • Edgar Peters Bowron, European Paintings Before 1900 in the Fogg Art Museum: A Summary Catalogue including Paintings in the Busch-Reisinger Museum, Harvard University Art Museums (Cambridge, MA, 1990)
  • Jane Martineau and Andrew Robison, The Glory of Venice: Art in the Eighteenth Century, exh. cat., Yale University Press (New Haven, CT, 1994), pp. 318-319, repr. in color fig. 215
  • Charles Beddington and Amanda Bradley, Venice: Canaletto and his Rivals, exh. cat., National Gallery (London, 2010), cat. no. 64, repr. color p. 147

Exhibition History

  • Ideal [Dis-] Placements: Old Masters at the Pulitzer, Pulitzer Arts Foundation, St. Louis, 10/24/2008 - 10/03/2009
  • Venice: Canaletto and his Rivals, National Gallery, London, 10/13/2010 - 01/16/2011; National Gallery of Art, Washington, 02/20/2011 - 05/30/2011
  • Ancient to Modern, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 01/31/2012 - 06/01/2013
  • 32Q: 2220 18th-19th Century, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 11/16/2014 - 01/01/2050

Subjects and Contexts

  • Google Art Project

Related Works

Verification Level

This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of European and American Art at am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu