Edward LKear, Santa Maria della Salute, seen at sunset from the Riva degli Schiavoni.
Graphite, ink, watercolor and gouache on wove paper. Signed in monogram with the tip of the brush at lower-right. Venice: ca. 1865. (4 ¾” x 7 5/8”, 120mm x 194mm).
Edward Lear (1812–1888) is distinguished in several fields: as a natural-history artist — working often for the Earl of Derby — as an illustrator for his own books, and as a landscape painter. He issued through his life accounts of his travels through Europe: Albania, Greece, Corsica etc. Venice, the darling of most travelers through the period of the Grand Tour and into the XIXc, was something of a blind-spot for Lear, who visited in 1857 at the behest of Lady Waldegrave, and was not particularly impressed by what he saw. He returned under his own steam in November 1865, and produced a rich body of views in two principal modes: thin washes over ink, sometimes with notations of color (i.e., preparatory for studio work) and more fully worked-up views including gouache; the present picture is in the latter mode.
The view of the church of Santa Maria della Salute, right at the splitting of the Giudecca Canal and the Grand Canal, became something of an “establishing shot” for painters of Venice from Canaletto to Turner and Sargent. There were a handful of popular vantage-points, but the present view was taken from the Riva degli Schiavoni, about a quarter-mile (350m or so) east of the Piazetta San Marco. Looking west-southwest, Lear captures the sun setting at left, with the church and its domes and campanile thrown into washes violet and lavender silhouette. By contrast, the nearby sailed skiffs and their moorings are fairly opaque with heavier washes and body-color (including a rather virtuosic slash of green). Graphite verticals measuring the church are visible in the water, and tight ink hatching is visible in the reflection of the rudders.
Purchased at Sotheby’s London 5 June 2007 (lot 132, an undesignated consignor), noting that the picture had been with Spink of London (their label included in a pocket mounted verso).
