The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of March 25, 2024

Piazza San Marco, Venice

Piazza San Marco, Venice

1780s
Location: not on view

Did You Know?

Francesco Guardi painted the Piazza San Marco at least twenty times during his life, in addition to a number of drawings.

Description

The plaza known as the Piazza San Marco in Venice was as popular among tourists in the 1700s as it is today, and the painter Francesco Guardi provided the wealthiest of these visitors with both painted and drawn images of it. The Cleveland drawing is one of a number by Guardi that depict the same view, showing the facade of the Basilica of San Marco at the far end, the campanile (bell tower), and the Procuratie Nuove, the building seen in perspective at the right. This drawing was likely executed in Guardi’s studio, perhaps from a model made on-site using a camera obscura to capture the wide-angle viewpoint of the square. Traces of black chalk indicate where Guardi carefully worked out the arrangement and perspective of the buildings before delineating them with staccato strokes of his pen, imparting freshness and a sketchlike immediacy to his composition. His painterly handling of brown wash bathes the square in dramatic shadow. The square is populated by stock figures who take leisurely strolls under the late afternoon sun; yet the protagonist of the painting could be said to be Venice itself—the city known as La Serenissima (the Most Serene).
  • ?-?
    Private collector, Budapest.
    1911
    (Sale at Hôtel Drouot, Paris, June 11, 1911, cat. no. 107.)
    ?-?
    (M. Knoedler & Co., London.)
    ?-1951
    (Cesar M. De Hauke [1900-1965], Paris, sold to The Cleveland Museum of Art, March 1951.)
    1951-
    The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH.
  • Shaw, James Byam. “Notes on Old and Modern Drawings: Unpublished Guardi Drawings.” The Art Quarterly 17 (1954): 159-166. Mentioned: p. 160 under no. 7; Reproduced: p. 163 fig. 5
    “Accessions of American and Canadian Museums, January-March, 1955.” The Art Quarterly 18, no. 3 (Autumn 1955). Mentioned: p. 307
    The Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art Handbook. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1958. Mentioned and Reproduced: cat. no. 577 archive.org
    Francis, Henry S. "Four Drawings by Francesco Guardi." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 45, no. 1 (1958): 8-13. Mentioned: p. 12; Reproduced: p. 10
    Parker, K.T. and James Byam Shaw. Canaletto e Guardi: Catalogo della Mostra dei disegni. Venice: Neri Pozza, 1962. Mentioned: p. 57 under no. 69
    Zampetti, Pietro. Mostra dei Guardi; catalogo della Mostra. Venezia: Alfieri, 1965. Mentioned: p. 412
    Pignatti, Terisio. Disegni dei Guardi. Florence: La Nuova Italia, 1967. Mentioned and Reproduced: no. LIV
    Morassi, Antonio. Guardi:Tutti i Disegni di Antonio, Francesco E. Giacomo Guardi. Milan: Alfieri, 1975. Mentioned: p.135 under no. 320; Reproduced: fig. 319
    Visentini, Margherita Azzi. “Feste.” Francesco Guardi: Vedute, Capricci, Feste. Venice: Electa, 1993. Mentioned: p. 90 under no. 24
    Cleveland Museum of Art, Diane DeGrazia, and Carter E. Foster. Master Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art in association with Rizzoli International Publications, New York, 2000. Mentioned and Reproduced: cat. no. 24, pp. 68-69, p. 286
    Sims, Lowery Stokes. The persistence of geometry: form, content, and culture in the collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2006. Mentioned and Reproduced: p. 25, no. 32
  • The Persistence of Geometry: Form, Content and Culture in the Collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland (MOCA), Cleveland, OH (June 9-August 20, 2006).
    Master Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (August 27-October 17, 2000); The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, NY (May 23-August 19, 2001); Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Houston, TX (October 14, 2001-January 6, 2002).
    Venice as City and Theater. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 27-April 21, 1985).
    Artists on Architecture. Akron Art Institute (now Akron Art Museum). Akron, OH. 1952.
    Mostra dei Guardi. Palazzo Grassi spa, 30124 Venice, Italy (organizer) (June 5-October 10, 1965).
    Drawings: France, Italy, Netherlands. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (January 1-March 24, 1965).
    Drawings. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (January 11-September 10, 1963).
    Italian and French Drawings. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (October 13, 1959-February 2, 1960).
    Department of Prints and Drawings Opening Exhibition. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (March 3, 1958-October 11, 1959).
  • {{cite web|title=Piazza San Marco, Venice|url=false|author=Francesco Guardi|year=1780s|access-date=25 March 2024|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1951.83