Christie's Old Masters Evening Sale 1 JUL

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    GIOVANNI ANTONIO CANAL, CALLED IL CANALETTO (VENICE 1697–1768) Venice, the Return of the Bucintoro on Ascension Day, circa 1732 Oil on canvas 33⅞ x 54⅜ in. (86 x 138.1 cm) Estimate on request; in excess of £20 million 

    London – Canaletto’s breathtaking view of Venice, the Return of the Bucintoro on Ascension Day, circa 1732, will lead Christie’s Old Masters Evening Sale on 1 July, during Classic Week London (estimate on request; in excess of £20 million). Having only appeared at auction twice in its 300-year history, in 1751 and 1993, this picture is in a remarkable state of preservation with the surface of the painting beautifully textured and the rich impasto of the figures intact. Inaccessible to scholars throughout much of its history, it has only recently come to light that the picture hung at 10 Downing Street, where it is first recorded in 1736, in the collection of Britain’s first Prime Minister, Sir Robert Walpole (1676-1745). This illustrious early 18th century provenance makes it – along with its pendant of the Grand Canal – the earliest recorded work by the Venetian master to be hung in an English house, predating King George III’s purchase of Consul Joseph Smith’s Canalettos by a quarter of a century. Exceedingly ambitious in both scale and conception, this highly evocative view is testimony to Canaletto’s prodigious talent and exacting technique, painted at the highpoint of his career. It is his earliest known representation of a subject to which he would return repeatedly, marking the starting point for Canaletto painting such festivities. This picture will be on on view at Christie’s New York from 3 until 15 May, followed by Hong Kong from 22 to 28 May, before returning to London for the pre-sale exhibition from 27 June to 1 July.

    Andrew Fletcher, Christie’s Global Head of the Old Masters Department commented: “Seldom does a true masterpiece such as this - particularly by a painter as important as Canaletto - appear on the art market, and it is utterly thrilling to be handling its sale. This extraordinary painting of the  grandest and most familiar view of Venice, by the city’s most recognisable painter, dates to Canaletto’s finest period and is as notable for its illustrious provenance as much as for its impeccable condition. It is unquestionably the greatest work by the artist to have come to the market in a generation.”

    10 DOWNING STREET

    Venice, the Return of the Bucintoro on Ascension Day was formerly accompanied by a pendant showing The Grand Canal, looking North-East from Palazzo Balbi to the Rialto Bridge. The two paintings remained together until the present work’s sale at Ader Tajan in 1993 where, appearing at auction for the first time in nearly 250 years, it fetched a record price for an old master painting at auction in France. The exceptional pictorial quality and condition together with the distinguished provenance of both pictures ensured that when the pendant was sold in 2005 it made a world record price for the artist at auction, a title it still holds twenty years later. What was not known when the present picture was last offered for sale is that the two paintings share a remarkable early history, having been owned by Britain’s first Prime Minister, the great patron and collector Sir Robert Walpole.

    Their presence in Walpole’s collection was first noticed by British Art historian and Old Master expert Sir Oliver Millar (1923-2007), who found them referenced in the 1736 manuscript catalogue of paintings at 10 Downing Street and in the 1751 auction when they were sold by Sir Robert’s grandson, George Walpole; the manuscript copy of the sale is held in the National Art Library at the Victoria & Albert Museum.  

    It is not known how or when Sir Robert acquired this magnificent view and its pendant. It may have been through his son Edward, who was dispatched to Venice charged with acquiring works of art between January 1730 and January 1731, though both views are datable on stylistic grounds to circa 1731-32 and, as such, slightly postdate Edward’s Venetian sojourn. Whilst no doubt facilitated by Edward’s connections in Venice, the purchase of the pictures must have been instigated by the refurbishment of the Downing Street residence in 1732-35, after the residence was offered to Sir Robert Walpole by King George II in 1732. The British architect William Kent gutted the interiors of two adjacent properties and united them to create a new complex of sixty rooms. Sir Robert and his wife took up residence in 1735, remaining there until Walpole left office in 1742, whereupon he took his collection of pictures to Houghton Hall.

    THE SUBJECT

    Falling on the fortieth day after Easter Sunday, the Feast of the Ascension of Christ was the most spectacular of all Venetian festivals and was frequently commented upon by visitors and travellers. It was on this day exclusively that the Bucintoro, the official galley of the Doge of Venice and a symbol of the Serenissima, was used. The model depicted here, the last to be made at the Arsenale, was designed by Stefano Conti and decorated by the sculptor Antonio Corradini, identifiable by the lion – symbol of the city of Venice – on the prow and the figure of Justice. Accompanied by the city’s officials, the doge would sail out to the Lido on the Bucintoro and cast a ring into the water, a symbolic act representing the marriage of Venice to the sea. It was a ceremony that brought the entire city together and remained a key date in the Venetian calendar until the fall of the Republic in 1797.  The Bacino di San Marco, where the scene is set, was the usual – and certainly the most thrilling – point of arrival for visitors in Venice.

    TECHNIQUE

    Canaletto’s masterful views, replete with details and unparalleled in atmospheric effects, made him the most successful vedutista of his age and influenced succeeding generations of landscape painters. In this work his technique is supremely confident: controlled flicks of the brush evoke feathered parasols and trailing ribbons. Vivid accents of colour guide the viewer’s eye around the composition, with touches of vibrant red punctuating the entire composition. Canaletto seems to have already mastered the formula for creating the effect of rippled water, as pale arcs skip across the surface of the lagoon. The artist demonstrates a lightness of touch in describing figures in movement, even those in different planes. The scene has an airy, spontaneous quality and yet Canaletto’s technique is very precise and his architecture meticulously constructed, with every building outlined and detailed with rigorous precision. He demonstrates a great sensitivity to changing weather conditions, intersecting a fluffy white cloud at centre with a bold horizontal brushstroke, painted wet-in-wet, and applying a streaky haze on the horizon. A gentle breeze can be felt through the water ripples in the Bacino and the movement of the gondoliers’ feathered caps. The picture is imbued with the warm tonality of an early summer’s day. The lagoon is populated with elegantly-dressed figures reclining in gondolas, the moored Bucintoro stands majestically beyond, and a crowd of onlookers gathers on the Molo in the distance.
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  • Lot 4

    JAN DAVIDSZ. DE HEEM (UTRECHT 1606-1684 ANTWERP)

    A pie on a pewter plate, a partially peeled lemon and overturned silver spoon on a pewter plate, crayfish and shrimp in a Wanli bowl, fruit, a walnut and an oyster on a pewter plate, a basket of fruit, a fluted glass, a silver-gilt cup, a roemer, an overturned silver tazza on a strong box, a silver ewer and a bread roll all on a partially draped table with a curtain beyond

    
    EstimateGBP 3,000,000 - 5,000,000
    
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    Lot 5

    FRANS HALS (ANTWERP 1582⁄3-1666 HAARLEM)

    Portrait of Johannes Hoornbeeck (1617-1666), half-length, in black dress, holding a book

    
    EstimateGBP 600,000 - 800,000
    
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    Lot 6

    PIETER BRUEGHEL THE YOUNGER (BRUSSELS 1564-1638 ANTWERP)

    The Birdtrap

    
    EstimateGBP 1,000,000 - 1,500,000
    
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    Lot 10

    JAN BRUEGHEL THE ELDER (BRUSSELS 1568-1625 ANTWERP)

    A mountainous wooded landscape with hermits and a mass being held at a shrine

    
    EstimateGBP 500,000 - 800,000
    
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    Lot 12

    JAN VAN HUYSUM (AMSTERDAM 1682-1749)

    Roses and other flowers in a terracotta vase with a bird’s nest on a marble ledge; and Fruit, roses and peonies in a basket with hazelnuts on a marble ledge

    
    EstimateGBP 1,200,000 - 1,800,000
    
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    Lot 15

    LUCAS CRANACH THE YOUNGER (WITTENBERG 1515-1586 WEIMAR)

    Venus with Cupid the Honey Thief

    
    EstimateGBP 500,000 - 800,000
    
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    Lot 16

    DOMÉNIKOS THEOTOKÓPOULOS, CALLED EL GRECO (CRETE 1541-1614 TOLEDO) AND STUDIO

    Christ taking leave of His Mother

    
    EstimateGBP 600,000 - 800,000
    
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    Lot 17

    GERRIT DOU (LEIDEN 1613-1675)

    A cottage interior with an old woman ('Rembrandt's Mother') delousing a boy's hair

    A cottage interior with an old woman ('Rembrandt's Mother') delousing a boy's hair exemplifies the seductively refined pictorial language and remarkable technique that made Gerrit Dou, like his master Rembrandt, one of the most successful Dutch artists of the seventeenth century. Celebrated for his painstakingly executed works, he enjoyed the favour of artists and connoisseurs alike, within his lifetime and in the centuries that followed..
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    EstimateGBP 1,000,000 - 1,500,000
    
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    Lot 19

    BERNARDO BELLOTTO (VENICE 1721-1780 WARSAW)

    The Fishermen’s Village at Pirna

    
    EstimateGBP 600,000 - 800,000
    
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    Lot 23

    GEORGE STUBBS, A.R.A. (LIVERPOOL 1724-1806 LONDON)

    A prancing horse with two dogs, in a landscape

    
    EstimateGBP 800,000 - 1,200,000
    
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    Lot 26

    JACOPO BELLINI (VENICE 1400-1470⁄71)

    Saint Benedict (?); and Saint Bernard of Clairvaux: panels from a polyptych

    
    EstimateGBP 800,000 - 1,200,000
    
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    Lot 27

    MATTIA PRETI (CALABRIA 1613-1699 VALLETTA)

    Samuel anointing David

    
    EstimateGBP 600,000 - 800,000
    
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    Lot 31

    TIZIANO VECELLIO, CALLED TITIAN (PIEVE DI CADORE C. 1485⁄90-1576 VENICE)

    Portrait of a nobleman, seated before a window

    
    EstimateGBP 3,000,000 - 5,000,000
    
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    Lot 40

    BERNARDO BELLOTTO (VENICE 1721-1780 WARSAW)

    Venice, The Grand Canal looking South-East from the Palazzo Michiel dalle Colonne to the Fondaco dei Tedeschi

    
    EstimateGBP 500,000 - 800,000
    
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    Lot 42

    JOSEPH MALLORD WILLIAM TURNER, R.A. (LONDON 1775-1851)

    Lake Brienz, with the setting Moon

    Showing late Turner at the height of his powers as a watercolourist Lake Brienz, with the Setting Moon is a mesmerizingly peaceful Swiss view, from the 1840s (estimate: £600,000-800,000). Paving the way for the Impressionists, this work shows Turner focusing on the effects of changing light. 
    EstimateGBP 600,000 - 800,000
    

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