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Two Canalettos to Star at Sotheby’s December Old Master Sale in London

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Canaletto - View of the Piazza San Marco Canaletto - View of the Grand Canal & Rialto Bridge

Sotheby’s announces two major Canalettos for its December Old Master sale in London:

these majestic canvases depict two of the most celebrated of Canaletto’s Venetian subjects: the Rialto Bridge over the Grand Canal and St. Mark’s Square. Coming from HSBC’s Corporate Art Collection, the two works will be offered as a pair in the Old Master Paintings Evening Sale, with an estimate of £8-12 million.

Bloomberg fills in more of the details here:

“Russians like hanging old pictures on their walls, which sets them apart from most other nationalities,” the London-based dealer Charles Beddington said in an interview. “These paintings are pretty nice examples from a popular period and they’re not highly priced,” said Beddington, who curated the 2010-2011 exhibition, “Venice: Canaletto and his Rivals,” at the National Gallery in London.

The ex-HSBC canvases have a low estimate of 8 million pounds, based on hammer prices. The valuation is less than the 8.5 million pounds with fees that was paid for the single Canaletto, ““The Molo, Venice, From the Bacino di San Marco,” at Christie’s International in London in July.

The paintings were owned in the 18th century by the self-made English banker John Furnell Tuffen.

They were bought by Edmond Safra, founder of Safra Republic Holdings SA, for 3.9 million pounds at Sotheby’s in London in 1997. The Geneva-based bank holding company and its assets — which included these Canalettos — were sold by Safra to HSBC in 1999. The Lebanese-born billionaire died in a house fire in Monaco in the same year.

HSBC May Make $19.5 Million in Sotheby’s Canaletto Sale (Bloomberg)

Canaletto to Sell in Vienna

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It’s not all beach volleyball on the New Horse Guards parade ground in London. The site was captured by Canaletto and now that works is going up for sale in Vienna during Dorotheum’s October 17th sale:

The painting is an important historical record documenting 18th century London and, arguably, the most English of the paintings Canaletto executed during his time in England from 1746 to 1755.  He had many English patrons including the Duke of Richmond and on his arrival his reputation was already widespread from the works acquired by English Grand Tourists in Venice.  Art historians often claim that Canaletto saw England through Venetian eyes, however, this work has an essentially English feel with its diffused atmospheric light which anticipates the works of later English artists such as Turner.

Giovanni Antonio Canal, called il Canaletto (1697-1768), painted some 40 works during his English stay, many of which remain in the aristocratic collections for which they were originally commissioned while others are in the National Gallery, London, the National Maritime Museum and the collection of HM The Queen.  This work, one of only three known paintings for which Canaletto used panel support, is closely related to the celebrated painting, The Old Horse Guards from St James’s Park, 1749, in The Andrew Lloyd Webber Art Foundation, and the drawing of The Old Horse Guards from St James’s Park in the British Museum.  The latter shares details with this composition, especially the groups of figures in the foreground, and the beating of a carpet on the right.

In the painting coming up for auction, New Horse Guards, designed by William Kent then Chief Architect to George II, is shown in the course of construction, Old Horse Guards having been demolished in 1749-50.  Canaletto depicts scaffolding around the clock tower and the south wing has still to be built, establishing the date of the painting between November 1752 and November 1753 when New Horse Guards was completed.  From the left can be seen the Admiralty building with the spire of James Gibbs’ Saint Martin-in-the-Fields beyond, New Horse Guards and the Treasury, also designed by William Kent and partly concealed by the houses of Downing Street on the right.  The houses in Downing Street were designed by Sir Christopher Wren and No. 10 became the official residence of the British Prime Minister and No. 11 that of the Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1735, as they still are today.

Much published and included in the 2006 exhibition Canaletto in England. A Venetian Artist Abroad, 1746-1755 at Dulwich Picture Gallery and then Yale Center for British Art, this impressive painting is not only a great work by the master Canaletto, but also an important historical record of one of Britain’s most-visited and recognisable landmarks.

False Canalettos

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Colin Gleadell reveals the conundrum at the center of the Canaletto market. The master had a nephew Bernardo Belloto who copied his works and

The differences are crucial because the phenomenon of 18th-century Venetian view paintings, sparked by the insatiable demand of English aristocrats doing the Grand Tour, is rife with uncertainties about authorship. “In the 19th century, ‘Canaletto’ was the standard description of all 18th-century Italian view paintings,” Beddington explains. “Even now, seven-figure sums are paid for dud Canalettos. Buyers should be extremely cautious.”

His interest in Venetian views began when he worked in Christie’s Old Master department from 1983-98, and his constant handling of them provided an experience second to none. “Canalettos were a frequent issue,” he recalls. “We were often faced with paintings accepted as Canalettos, but that were not so straightforward.”Continue Reading

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