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Pietro Longhi (Venice 1701- 1785), The Elephant. Photo Sotheby's
signed, dated and inscribed on the notice, upper left: Vero Ritratto / del elefante / Condotto a Vanezia / l'anno 1774. / Dipinzo per mano di / Pietro Longhi, / All. Ill.mo Sig.r Sebastian Rizzo / Me(?)o Fs(?)o ~ ; oil on canvas; 18 3/4 by 24 in.; 47.5 by 61 cm. Estimation: 700,000 - 900,000 USD
PROVENANCE
Anonymous sale, Paris, Tajan, 26 June 2008, lot 33;
Where purchased by the persent collector.
NOTE DE CATALOGUE
Pietro Longhi's intriguing and humouros painting documents a specific and memorable event in 1774 when an Indian elephant was brought to Venice for public exhibition. The heavy, fur-lined cloaks, muffs and hats worn by the figures and the white mask hiding the face of the man in black suggest this occured during the cold period of Carnivale. Given the prominence of the inscription, upper left, we can deduce that this work is not only a vero ritratto (true portrait) of the elephant but indeed of Signor Sebestiano Rizzo himself, most likely the figure in the elegant red coat and tricorn hat. Longhi produced four known versions of this painting, each portraying a different group of figures before the colossal creature: a commission for the N[obil] D[onna] Marina Sagredo Pisani, in the Banco Ambrosiano Veneto collection, Vicenza; one for S.E. Domenica Dolfin Valier, exhibited in the Museo Correr, 1993-1994 and now in Parisian private collection; and another commissioned by a patron whose name is now mostly illegible in the inscription, Giuseppe Bo…a…? in a private collection in Gorizia, where it was exhibited in 2008.1
The most widely published of the versions is the Pisani composition in which the artist not only signs, as in the present painting, in the inscription, Dipinto per mano di Pietro Longhi (Painted by the hand of Pietro Longhi) but indeed paints a self-portrait, placing himself in an elevated position, presiding over the scene and sketching intently as though to verify that the portrait had been drawn from life and add further weight to the truth and exactitude of the event. The
exotic turquoise dress and unusual tasseled cap of the moustachioed figure to the far right of the group suggest he is the elephant's owner or handler. He points to the animal's trunk and the masked figure beside him appears to tilt his head toward him, listening. It is interesting to note that in the Pisani composition the handler is placed behind the group of onlookers yet a pentiment now visible to the naked eye, shows he was originally positioned closest to the elephant, as in the present painting, as if Longhi later decided to afford him a less prominent role. In the Dolfin Valier painting, meanwhile, the handler stands in the foreground, facing away from the viewer, his crop behind his back and pointing to the animal as he addresses the crowd, showing that Longhi personalized each commission, tailoring it to the specific memory of each patron's visit. More than twenty years earlier, the artist completed a number of similar portraits to commemorate the visit of a rhinoceros to Venice in 1751 (one now in the Ca' Rezzonico, Venice, and another in the National Gallery, London [inv. no. 1001]) and the exhibition of a lion in 1762.2
1. A. Mariuz, Pietro Longhi, exhibition catalogue, Milan 1993, cat. no. 71, reproduced; Ibid.; D. Succi and A. Delneri, Le Meraviglie di Venezia, Dipinto del'700 in collezioni private, exhibition catalogue, Gorizia 2008, cat. no. 58, reproduced.
2. T. Pignatti, L'opera completa di Pietro Longhi, Milan 1974, cat. no. 78 and 175 reproduced.
Sotheby's. Important Old Master Paintings and Sculpture. New York | 31 janv. 2013 www.sothebys.com
