Paper Landscape Drawings and Watercolors

Provenance: Dominique-Vivant Denon Collection (his stamp partly erased in the lower right corner). Denon sale on May 1er 1826 – part of lot 329 or lot 331 Marquet de Vasselot Collection - Sale of May 28-29 1891 - lot number 157 London private collection Laurin-Guilloux-Buffetaud sale of April 4, 1974 - lot number 25 Ader-Picard-Tajan sale June 7, 1989 Gilbert Butler Gallery - New York (from a label on the back) This drawing, which bears the signature "Fr Guardi", is included in the catalog raisonné of Guardi's drawings (Guardi - I designi) published by Antonio Morassi under number 435 (reproduction number 433). In this drawing, probably executed at the end of his life, Francesco Guardi (1712-1793) depicts a partly imaginary view of the villas located along the Brenta Canal. Those villas, set along the canal that connects Venice and Padua, were one of the traditional holiday destinations of Venetian aristocratic families. The long succession of sales in which this drawing appears allows us to trace it back to its first known owner, Dominique-Vivant Denon, who certainly bought it in Italy, either during his long stay in Venice (1786-1793), possibly from Guardi himself, or during the Napoleonic period. 1. Francesco Guardi, a protean artist Francesco Guardi was born into a family of artists: his father Domenico (1678 - 1716) was also a painter, as were his two brothers Gianantonio, known as Antonio (1699 - 1760) and Nicolò. His sister Cecilia married the painter Giovanni Battista Tiepolo. Art historians estimate that Francesco Guardi painted his first vedute around 1755-1756; the painting of vedute heralded therefore the second stage in his life as a painter, as he was in his mid-forties. His first views of Venice were painted under the influence of Canaletto, whose studio he may have attended. In 1760, as he took over the family workshop on the death of his brother, who until then had run it focusing largely on the production of religious and historical scenes, allowed him to discover and flourish in this pictorial genre. His second son Giacomo (1764 - 1835) joined him and was the last painter of the family. Until his death Francesco remained a fertile painter who painted with extreme ease and speed, and this explains the large number of canvases (over a thousand) that constitute his corpus. The themes explored by Guardi in this second part of his life are multiple but can be classified in three broad categories, which are quite permeable: beside the views of Venice, which constitute the most well-known part of his drawn and painted work, Guardi was a great illustrator of the Venetian festivals and breathed new life into to the Caprice, a pictorial genre that mixes imaginary representations of architectural landscapes, often inspired by the sites of the lagoon and scenes de genre. In its Vedute, Guardi succeeds in the tour de force of radically renewing a genre in which Canaletto had excelled. Moving away from the descriptive reality of his predecessor, he created a new, magical vision. Reversing the general tendencies of European art marked by the advent of the neo-clacissism, during the last thirty years of his life, Guardi developed a more and more personal style, gradually freeing itself from the framework of strict figuration by privileging evocations rather than representations. In his Vedute, Guardi sometimes abandons the narrow frame of the lagoon for firm ground, as in 1778 at the time of his voyage to Trentino, or when carrying out a series of paintings representing Venetian villas which were accompanied by some drawings, following the request of John Strange, the British "Resident" in Venice. 2. Description of the artwork This drawing, recognized by Antonio Morassi as an autograph work by Francesco Guardi, is a unicum in the artist's corpus. Although it may be similar to other drawings of Venetian villas commissioned by John Strange, it is likely to be a later work, mixing real and imaginary elements. At a bend of the Brenta, on the right we can see an imposing Palladian villa and on the other bank two villas separated by a sort of nymphaeum. They are isolated from the road that runs along the canal by high walls in which three monumental portals open, one of which is decorated with statues. In the middle of the canal the Burchiello advances. It was a river boat with a large wooden cabin, finely painted and decorated and lit by windows on each side. This boat was used by the wealthiest Venetians to travel from Venice to their country villas. Boats like this were rowed from St. Mark's to Fusina, from where they were then pulled by horses to Padua. The absence of horses tells us that the boat is probably on its way down the canal to Venice. In an amusing detail at the far left of the drawing, Guardi has elliptically depicted a horse-drawn carriage, pulled by a single horse that seems to be at full gallop, as if trying to catch up with the Burchiello. The villa on the right has a majestic peristyle from which a flight of steps emerges. The composition seems largely fanciful since these steps stop on a balustrade located at mid-height and do not appear to give access to the garden below. The garden is embellished with kiosks, as if for a waterside party, with a circular fountain...

Lieutenant Thomas Yates RN. English ( b. circa 1760 - d.1796 ). Frigates in a Calm off Dover with a View of the Town and Pierheads. Watercolour. Signed & Dated 1791. Image size 6.9 inches x 9.3 inches ( 17.5cm x 23.5cm ). Frame size 15.7 inches x 18.1 inches ( 40cm x 46cm ). Available for sale is this original painting by Lieutenant Thomas Yates RN is dated 1791. The watercolor is presented and supplied in a sympathetic frame dating from the 1950s or 1960s (which is shown in these photographs), mounted and behind glass. The watercolor is signed and dated 1791 lower right. Lt. Thomas Yates was a talented and interesting artist, whose works are stylish and accurate. Unfortunately, his works are relatively rare because of the untimely nature of his death. This Lieutenant is not to be confused with a Major Yates of later date. Yates was apprenticed to John Mitchell on 25 November 1774 and became accomplished as both an artist and an engraver. He engraved and published from his own drawings a set of ‘Celebrated Naval Actions’. When the French Revolutionary Wars began, he started to publish pictures of actions from his own drawings. Yates was appointed to the rank of Lieutenant in the Royal Navy in 1782 and, in common with other officers of the era such as William Elliott, Thomas Luny, Nicholas Pocock...

Attributed to Peter Le Cave (active 1769-1816) Figures resting in a rustic landscape Watercolor over traces of pencil on laid paper 5 x 8¼ inches A charmin...

Pair of 18th Century Sepia Drawings by Anthony Thomas Devis who was a British artist who lived between the years 1729 and 1817. These drawings are sepi...

Riding School is an ink original drawing on watermarked and wire rod paper realized in the middle of XVIII century by Jan Peter Verdussen, with autograph notes. In very good conditi...

China ink and Watercolour on paper. With handwritten notes in lower margin "Fait proche de Nantes, 3 Juillet 1736". Numbered " 343". In very good condition except some stain on lower left margin. A usual browned paper on margin, and a very little scratch on lower left corner. Very fresh watercolour representing a landscape, more precisely the "wild flora...

China ink and Watercolour on paper. With handwritten notes in low "Fait proche de Rome, ce 18 Juillet 1742, Tibre, R.". in very good condition, except some stains on higher margin. W...

Attr. Giovanni Paolo Panini (Italian 1691-1765) "Roman Ruins" ca. 1750 Ink on Paper 17.8" x 14" inches framed 12" x 8.3" inches unframed Giovann...