Lot 1386. A blue and white 'klapmuts' bowl, Kangxi period (1662-1722). Height 9.6 cm; diameter 20.2 cm. Estimated price €1.800 - €2.500. Result: €1.364. Courtesy Lempertz

Painted with four figure scenes from "The Romance of the Western Chamber" (Xi xiang ji) below a diaper-pattern border at the everted rim, the interior with a roundel of boys at play.

Lempertz. Asian Art II China, Tibetan/Nepalese Art, 18.06.2017, 14:00, Brussels

Lot 1387. A blue and white silver-mounted tea caddy, Kangxi period (1662-1722). Height 18.5 cm. Estimated price €600 - €800. Result: €992. Courtesy Lempertz

Of ovoid form, decorated in underglaze-blue with ladies in a fenced garden with banana trees. Apocryphal Chenghua four-character mark. Silver-mounting with the Dutch maker's mark of J. M. van Kempen & Zoon, Voorschoten and sword mark.

Provenance: Private collection, Southern Germany

Lempertz. Asian Art II China, Tibetan/Nepalese Art, 18.06.2017, 14:00, Brussels

Lot 1389. A pair of blue and white dishes, Kangxi period (1662-1722). Diameter 33.8 cm. Estimated price €1.600 - €2.000. Result: €1.736. Courtesy Lempertz

Decorated with a scene from "The Romance of the Western Chamber" (Xi xiang ji) with two scholars on a terrace and a lady at a doorway in a rocky landscape, within a trellis pattern border reserved with panels of peach, pomegranate and Buddha's hand citron, the reverse with sprays of bamboo.

Provenance: Private collection, Rhineland, acquired from H. R. Hancock & Sons, London in the 1970s.

Lempertz. Asian Art II China, Tibetan/Nepalese Art, 18.06.2017, 14:00, Brussels

Lot 2. Studio of Ambrosius Bosschaert I (Antwerp 1573-1621 The Hague), Flowers in a gilt-mounted Wan-li vase on a ledge, with a butterfly and shell, oil on panel, 14 1/8 x 9 ½ in. (35.8 x 24.3 cm). © Christie's Images Ltd 2017

Provenance: Private collection, Germany.
Meyer; Hugo Helbing, Munich, 5 and 6 June 1934, lot 398, as 'Jan Brueghel I', illustrated. 
Anonymous sale; Galerie Dr. Phil. Hans Rudolph, Hamburg, 29 and 30 March 1951, lot 435, as 'Jan Brueghel I', illustrated on the cover and pl. 39.

Literature: L.J. Bol, The Bosschaert Dynasty: Painters of Flowers and Fruit, Leigh-on-Sea, 1960, p. 61, no. 15, as 'Ambrosius Bosschaert the Elder'.

Exhibited: Mainz, Ausstellung Alter Kunst im Kurfürstlichen Schloss, 1925, no. 280, as ‘Jan van Breughel’.

Note: First recorded in the 1930s as by Jan Breughel the Elder, it was not until 1960 that this high quality still life was correctly linked to Ambrosius Bosschaert the Elder, when Laurens Bol published it as an autograph work in his seminal The Bosschaert Dynasty: Painters of Flowers and Fruit (op. cit.). As Bol noted, the picture is closely related to the signed work on copper in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (inv. A539), which is generally dated to circa 1609. The two pictures share several of the same motifs - the blue vase (with the exception of the gilt base), the two roses, polyanthus narcissus, yellow French marigold, cyclamen and one tulip (in the top left of the present work), along with the shell in the left foreground. A number of works by Bosschaert, also dating to this period, feature varied designs of the giltmounted Wan-li vase, such as that in the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, Madrid (inv. 1958.4) and Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna (inv. 547), suggesting that the master invented variations of the motif, rather being reliant on a specific studio prop. 

Ambrosius Bosschaert I, Chinese Vase with Flowers, Shells and Insects, ca. 1609.  Oil on copper. 68.6 x 50.8 cm ©Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

Ambrosius Bosschaert d. Ä. (1573 Antwerp - 1621 The Hague), Bunch of flowers, 1609, oil on mahogany wood, 51 cm x 36.5 cm. Picture Gallery, 547© KHM-Museumverband, Scientific Institution of Public Law

Ambrosius Bosschaert the Elder, A Still Life of Flowers in a Wan-Li Vase on a Ledge with further Flowers, Shells and a Butterfly, 1609-10. Oil on copper, 68.6 x 50.7 cm, NG6613© 2017 The National Gallery, Trafalgar Square, London WC2N 5DN

Despite its relationship to the Oxford picture and the obvious finesse of its execution, Dr. Fred Meijer of the RKD, The Hague, disagrees with Bol, arguing that the present work is by a talented artist active in the Bosschaert studio around 1617/18, rather than by the master himself: ‘lacking the subtlety in the details and looseness and freedom in the handling that characterises Bosschaert’ (after first-hand inspection; private communication). 

Lot 1393. A blue and white dish, Late Ming dynasty. Diameter 43 cm. Estimated price €600 - €800. Result: €1.736. Courtesy Lempertz

Decorated with a pagoda in a river landscape, cranes, pines and rocks. Restored.

Lempertz. Asian Art II China, Tibetan/Nepalese Art, 18.06.2017, 14:00, Brussels

David Rijckaert II (Antwerp 1589-1642), A stoneware ewer, a Berkemeyer and a conical glass in abekerschroef, with confectionary in a silver platter, on a ledge, oil on panel, 19 5/8 x 13 5/8 in. (49.7 x 35.1 cm). Estimate GBP 70,000 - GBP 100,000. Price realised GBP 557,000. © Christie's Images Ltd 2017

Note: Painted by the rare and enigmatic artist David Rijckaert II, this hitherto unpublished work exemplifies the most highly regarded traits of the first generation of Flemish still life painters, with its incisive detailing of objects and illusorily subtle composition. The scarcity of the artist’s work can be attributed to historical confusion with his artistic identity, his name belonging to three men successively in an extended family of painters, all registered in the De Liggeren of the Antwerp Guild of St. Luke. It was only after 1995, when a large decorative still life of shells, glassware and ceramics, signed and dated ‘DAVIDT.RYCKAERTS. / .1616.’, was sold in these Rooms that much was gleaned of his artistic identity (8 December 1995, lot 38A). Dr. Fred Meijer deemed the painting far too early to be by the hand of David Rijckaert III, a landscape and genre painter born in 1612 (with whose work the present artist has been confused), and not the work of the patriarch David Rijckaert I, a decorator of woodwork and sculptures, concluding that it was naturally a picture by David Rijckaert II (F.G. Meijer, ‘Herkend: Een stilleven van David Rijckaert II’, Magazine Rijksmuseum Twenthe, 2009, no. 1, pp. 26-28), from which an oeuvre could thus be reasonably established. 

The chromatic palette, sharply illuminated foreground and meticulous, verisimilar treatment of everyday objects in this picture follows a tradition established by Osias Beert I (c. 1580-late 1624), Georg Flegel (1566-1638) and Clara Peeters (?1589-1657), who shaped the vocabulary of early still life painters, developing the genre that flourished in Antwerp, Haarlem and Frankfurt am Main at the beginning of the seventeenth century. Small cabinet pictures such as this were intended for intimate study by discerning viewers familiar with their symbolism, and would have hung among collections of artefacts and naturalia, alongside other paintings, scientific instruments, ornate objects and classical antiques.  

Compositions such as this, classified as ontbijtjes, or ‘breakfast still lifes’, were both displays of gastronomic luxury and symbols of religious ideas. In the seventeenth-century culinary culture of the Dutch aristocracy and patrician middle classes, banquets consisted of up to nine courses and always concluded with dessert. Sugar confectionery came to prominence at the turn of the seventeenth century, after previously only being used for pharmaceutical purposes, and marked a dramatic transformation in taste, quickly replacing honey as a sweetener. The religious undertones here are emphasised by the sweets that overlap as a cross in the left foreground, with the water and wine allusive to Christ’s first miracle at the Marriage at Cana, together with the wine and bread as Eucharistic symbols of his blood and body.  

As a display of luxury, Rijckaert renders with great meticulousness two drinking vessels, a Berkemeier glass and one conically shaped in a gold bekerschroef, or glass-holder, used to turn a simple glass into an elegant vessel by providing an intricately designed stem and base. Judging from their representation in art, they were common devices in late sixteenth and early-seventeenth century painting and denoted high social standing. The detail of Rijckaert’s rendering of the stoneware ewer further provides a wealth of visual information that identifies it as a ‘Schnabelkanne’, produced in the ceramics tradition of Siegburg, Germany, most probably by the potter Christian Knütgen, a member of the influential potter dynasty, between 1550 and 1600. The stylistic and decorative motifs can be closely matched to comparable objects by the maker in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (fig. 1; inv. no. 11.93.3) and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (inv. no. 8457-1863), which are distinctive in their applied moulded reliefs and incised ‘kerbschnitt’ chip-carved geometric decoration. The ornate, curvilinear designs typically had allegorical or religious significance and could depict entire narratives, usually made after prints of the nominal ‘Little Masters’ of the German school, such as Virgil Solis, Bartel Beham, and Theodore de Bry. The industry of German stoneware played an important part in the material culture of early modern Low Countries, catering to the life of Netherlandish middle classes in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.  

Ewer (Schnabelkanne). Decoration after a design by Theodor de Bry (Netherlandish, Liège 1528–1598 Frankfurt), ca. 1595, German, Siegburg. Glazed stoneware; pewter. Height: 9 1/2 in. (24.1 cm), Rogers Fund, 1911 (11.93.3) © 2000–2017 The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Ewer, Workshop of Christian Knutgen, Siegburg, Germany, dated 1590, stoneware with applied moulded reliefs and English silver mount of the late 16th century, 8457-1863 © Victoria and Albert Museum, London 2017. 

We are grateful to Dr. Fred Meijer of the RKD, The Hague, for proposing the attribution on the basis of photographs. 

Christie's. Old Masters Evening Sale, 6 July 2017, London, King Street

Celestial horse, Han dynasty, 1st-2nd century CE. Bronze, 44 7/8 x 34 1/2 x 14 1/2 in. (113.98 x 87.63 x 36.83 cm). Gift of Ruth and Bruce Dayton, 2002.45. Photo: Minneapolis Institute of Art. © Ringling Museum

Sarasota, FL. - Demonstrating a continuing interest and commitment to the study of Asian Art, The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art presentsEternal Offerings, which showcases nearly 100 Chinese bronze objects from the Minneapolis Institute of Art (Mia). Mia’s Asian art collection is considered one of the most important in the United States, and this exhibition at The Ringling is the first time these significant objects will have toured.

“When The Ringling opened the Center for Asian Art in the Dr. Helga Wall-Apelt Gallery of Asian Art in May 2016, it was with the goal to continue to cultivate partnerships with individuals and institutions around the globe, creating a site for scholars and enthusiasts of Asian art and culture. Bringing this significant collection to our galleries from the Minneapolis Institute of Art reaffirms this commitment,” said Steven High, executive director.

 Wine vessel zun in the shape of an owl, Late Shang dynasty, 13th-12th century BCE. Bronze, 12 1/2 x 8 1/4 in. (31.75 x 20.96 cm). Bequest of Alfred F. Pillsbury, 50.46.116. Photo: Minneapolis Institute of Art. © Ringling Museum

The works showcased span millenia, revealing the evolution of bronzes in Chinese society. The exhibition highlights the many uses of these objects including their role in ancestral rites, as symbols of power and supremacy, as vessels for burial, and as luxury items and art objects. Eternal Offerings also looks at how inscriptions on bronzes can uncover information on the nature of rituals.

Like many societies, China’s social cohesion was formed around ritual. Most of the objects for these early rituals were made of bronze, and due to their important social function, we can extrapolate that the forms and ornamentation depicted on them relate to some of the primary concerns of their societies. Additionally, the possession of bronze objects signified elite status.  

 Food vessel gui, Early Western Zhou dynasty, early 10th century BCE. Bronze, 6 1/4 x 12 in. (15.88 x 30.48 cm). Bequest of Alfred F. Pillsbury, 50.46.119. Photo: Minneapolis Institute of Art. © Ringling Museum

Works in the exhibition point to the various types of rituals found in early Chinese dynasties including ancestral, funereal and musical. Music was an integral element in communicating with spirits. Visitors to the show will be able to see several sets of bells that were important adjuncts in these ceremonies.

Eternal Offerings also demonstrates the significant role of inscriptions on bronzes, especially in the later Western Zhou dynasty. The notations often identify the person who made the piece, the event to which the vessel was dedicated, and the ritual in which it was used. As the system of rites concerning ceremonies, military campaigns, feasts and meetings evolved, so too did the inscriptions found on these objects. “The amount of nuance and knowledge in these relatively small objects is astounding,” remarked Christopher Jones, associate curator of photography and exhibitions at The Ringling.

Ritual bell bo, Warring States period, 6th-5th century BCE. Bronze, 24 5/8 x 18 1/8 x 14 in. (62.55 x 46.04 x 35.56 cm). Gift of Ruth and Bruce Dayton, 97.81. Photo: Minneapolis Institute of Art. © Ringling Museum

Wine vessel fangjia, 13th-12th century BCE. Bronze, 13 3/4 × 9 × 8 7/16 in., 13 lb. (34.93 × 22.86 × 21.43 cm, 5.9 kg). Bequest of Alfred F. Pillsbury, 50.46.109. Photo: Minneapolis Institute of Art. © Ringling Museum

Ceremonial Bell yongzhong, Spring & Autumn period, 6th-5th century BCE. Bronze, 23 in. (58.42 cm). Bequest of Alfred F. Pillsbury, 50.46.110. Photo: Minneapolis Institute of Art. © Ringling Museum

Wine vessel lei, Warring states period, 4th century BCE. Bronze with gold, silver and copper inlay, 9 3/4 × 12 1/2 × 11 5/8 (di., belly) in., 13.2 lb. (24.77 × 31.75 × 29.53 (di., belly) cm, 6 kg). Bequest of Alfred F. Pillsbury, 50.46.112. Photo: Minneapolis Institute of Art. © Ringling Museum

Kneeling figure, Warring States period, 4th century BCE. Bronze, 11 1/8 × 5 7/8 × 6 in., 7.3 lb. (28.26 × 14.92 × 15.24 cm, 3.3 kg). Bequest of Alfred F. Pillsbury, 50.46.114. Photo: Minneapolis Institute of Art. © Ringling Museum

Wine vessel you, Late Shang dynasty, 12th-11th century BCE. Bronze, 10 1/4 × 6 3/4 × 6 3/4 in., 6.8 lb. (24.8 × 17.1 × 15.9 cm, 3.1 kg). Bequest of Alfred F. Pillsbury, 50.46.122a,b. Photo: Minneapolis Institute of Art. © Ringling Museum

Standing Figure, Warring States period, 5th-4th century BCE. Bronze with gold and silver inlay, 5 1/4 × 2 × 2 1/2 in., 0.7 lb. (13.34 × 5.08 × 6.35 cm, 0.3 kg). Gift of Ruth and Bruce Dayton, 2003.140.3. Photo: Minneapolis Institute of Art. © Ringling Museum

Lucio Fontana, Concetto Spaziale-Attese, ca. 1960. Water-based paint on canvas, 73 x 60 cm. Collezione Fondazione Francesco Federico Cerrui per l'Arte on long-term loan Castello di Rivoli Museo d'Arte Contemporanea, Rivoli-Torino.

TURIN.- Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, Director of the Castello di Rivoli Museum, announces that Castello di Rivoli will enter into a special partnership with the legendary Cerruti Collection to become the world’s first contemporary art museum to incorporate an encyclopaedic collection of the art of the past. 

Castello di Rivoli Museum, a renowned museum of contemporary art and the first in Italy, is entering into an important agreement with the Fondazione Francesco Federico Cerruti per l’Arte to safeguard, research, enhance, and display the extraordinary, yet virtually unknown, Cerruti Collection. For the first time, it will be possible for the public to discover the priceless legacy of Francesco Federico Cerruti (Genoa, 1922 – Turin, 2015), a secretive and reserved entrepreneur and passionate collector who passed away in 2015 at the age of 93. 

Agnolo Gaddi, Triptych, central panel: Christ the Redeemer; left: Archangel Gabriel; right: Virgin Mary; engaged frames - the pinnacles of altarpiece for the Nobili Chapel in Santa Maria degli Angeli, Florence, ca. 1385. Tempera on board with golden background, 94, 8 x 38 each. Collezione Fondazione Francesco Federico Cerrui per l'Arte on long-term loan Castello di Rivoli Museo d'Arte Contemporanea, Rivoli-Torino.

Sir Nicholas Serota has praised this development: In thirty years the collection at Castello di Rivoli has become one of the outstanding collections of post-war and contemporary art. The full scope of the Cerutti collection has always been a secret, but we can now see that his exceptional eye brought together an astonishing range of work of all periods, all of the highest quality. For the Castello the proximity of this fine collection will provide inspiring histories and stimulating comparisons for the collection of Arte Povera and contemporary art. 

This ambitious project includes renovating the villa that Cerruti built at Rivoli, near the Castello di Rivoli Museum, to house his collection of art, books and furniture spanning from the middle ages to the twentieth century. In January 2019 the villa will become the main home of the Cerruti Collection and the Cerruti Villa and expanded Rivoli museum campus will open to the public.  

Stefano di Giovanni Consolo, known as Sassetta, St. Augustine - An altar pinnacle of Borgo Sansepolcro (A Pinnacle from the Borgo Sansepolcro Altarpiece), 1444, tempera and gold on panel molded with engaged frame, 44.5 x 37.2 cm. Collezione Fondazione Francesco Federico Cerrui per l'Arte on long-term loan Castello di Rivoli Museo d'Arte Contemporanea, Rivoli-Torino.

The Castello di Rivoli will manage the Cerruti Collection and the Villa, demonstrating that a fruitful dialogue between contemporary art and the past is possible. According to Christov-Bakargiev, “This important collection will be a driving force of creativity for the museum, in a unique dialogue between ancient and contemporary.” 

Castello di Rivoli will become the first contemporary art museum in the world to incorporate an historic art collection, says Christov-Bakargiev: “We are transforming what a museum of contemporary art can be, creating a new model that turns the paradigm of museums on its head. Instead of a museum of the past adding a contemporary wing, we are a museum of today, looking at the art of the past from a contemporary perspective. We are offering artists and the broader culture the opportunity to relate up-close to periods that came before, enabling them to respond to and work with the great works of art in this collection.”  

Jacopo Carucci, known as Pontormo, Portrait of a Gentleman with book (Portrait of a Gentleman with Book), 1534-1535, oil on board, 88.2 x 71.5 cm. Collezione Fondazione Francesco Federico Cerrui per l'Arte on long-term loan Castello di Rivoli Museo d'Arte Contemporanea, Rivoli-Torino.

From the 1950s until his death in 2015, Francesco Federico Cerruti collected some 300 works of sculpture and painting, ranging from the Middle Ages to today, plus approximately 200 rare and ancient books, exquisite book bindings and over 300 furnishings, including carpets and desks by renowned cabinet makers. Cerruti assembled a primarily European collection – very strong in Italian art – that provides a journey into the history of art, from historic art to furniture, from the Renaissance to today. It is a private collection of immense quality, like very few in Europe and the world, including extraordinary work ranging from Segno di Bonaventura, Bernardo Daddi, Pontormo, Ribera and Zubarán to Renoir, Modigliani, Kandinsky, Giacometti, Picasso, Klee, Severini, Boccioni, Balla, and Magritte, as well as Bacon, Burri, Fontana, Warhol, De Dominicis, and Paolini. 

As The Art Newspaper wrote upon Cerruti’s death in July 2015: He loved beauty, and every room was rich in masterpieces he had bought over nearly 70 years from auction catalogues and by just waiting for the art world to come to him. They were his family, his friends, his only raison d’être apart from his work. … Federico Cerruti, who died aged 93 … was famous with dealers for taking weeks to decide, but although he would occasionally consult, it was his eye alone that governed his choices, for he had the gift of understanding great art.  

Medardo Rosso, The Jewish Child, after 1892, wax over plaster, 21 x 14 x 9.5 cm. Collezione Fondazione Francesco Federico Cerrui per l'Arte on long-term loan Castello di Rivoli Museo d'Arte Contemporanea, Rivoli-Torino.

Cerruti, a reclusive bachelor, trained in accounting and made his fortune by transforming his family’s traditional craft book-binding business into Italy’s first industrial book bindery, responsible for printing telephone directories, among other things, although he was also a leader in luxury art book-binding. An entrepreneurial industrialist, he travelled to the US in 1957 to study the technology of automated perfect binding and then recreated it in Turin, founding the company Legatoria Industriale Torinese (LIT). 

Cerruti’s only collecting criterion was perfection – he aimed to create a collection of museum-quality masterpieces in every category. While he lent generously to important museum exhibitions, this was done anonymously; he and the extent of his collection remained a mystery until his death.  

Umbertio Boccioni, Antigrazioso (Antigraceful), 1912, oil on canvas, 80 x 80 cm. Collezione Fondazione Francesco Federico Cerrui per l'Arte on long-term loan Castello di Rivoli Museo d'Arte Contemporanea, Rivoli-Torino.

In his will Cerruti left his collection to future generations, so they could experience its beauty and complexity for themselves. In the foundation’s statute, Cerruti wrote how he “had decided to donate to a national and international public” his collection in the hopes of “perpetuating the values that animated him, as well as his sense of patronage, so as to help to make the Cerruti Collection a reality that could live on and stimulate cultural growth.” In his eccentric life and lasting cultural legacy, Cerruti can perhaps be seen as an Italian collector in the tradition of the American Albert C. Barnes, whose art collection continues to inspire future generations. 

Andreina Cerruti, the collector’s sister and President of the Fondazione Francesco Federico Cerruti per l’Arte, states: “We are pleased that Francesco Federico’s dream of offering his home and collection to the public can today become a reality thanks to an agreement with the Castello di Rivoli Museum of Contemporary Art. This initiative between the Museum in Rivoli and our Foundation makes my brother’s extraordinary art collection open to the world, as he himself said and desired. The collection is also the story of life, disclosing his own life in the exclusive language that belongs to art and to poetry.”

Pablo Picasso, Oiseau avec une branche (Bird with Branch), 1913, oil on canvas, 66 x 50.5 cm. Collezione Fondazione Francesco Federico Cerrui per l'Arte on long-term loan Castello di Rivoli Museo d'Arte Contemporanea, Rivoli-Torino.

Behind this exceptional collection lies the ideal and mysterious figure of the art lover Francesco Federico Cerruti, a discreet and private man, little inclined to the noisiness of the world or to social interaction. In the silence of his own private museum he sought emotion and amazement in front of the enigma of artistic creation. Despite passionately overseeing the display of his works and furnishings at the Rivoli villa in a balance where their closeness and distance could coexist, Cerruti chose not to live here, preferring instead a simple flat above his factory in Turin. He only visited the villa for a solitary lunch every Sunday, prepared by his housekeeper in a room filled with orchids. He organised two parties a year in the villa, on his birthday and name day, and spent Christmas with the homeless. Cerruti’s sensitivity and generosity, the hidden motif of his passion, are now an integral part of this new museum, unique in Italy and the world.  

From January 2019, the Cerruti Villa will be open to the public through guided tours and a dedicated shuttle will run between the Castello di Rivoli and the villa. In addition, artists, writers, art historians, filmmakers, philosophers and other thinkers will be invited to experience the Cerruti Villa in an intimate dialogue to render the hidden voice, the nuances, the vibrations concealed in art that can embrace the legacy of the past, with its breath and its rhythm, and place these into the very heart of our age. In our digital era—technological and innovative yet aimed at archiving the past—encyclopaedic museums such as the Metropolitan Museum in New York, the Hermitage in Saint Petersburg, and the Louvre in Paris are in process opening devoted to contemporary art. The Castello di Rivoli has chosen a different path, aware of the inescapable bond between the works of the past and of the present, and of a course like that of art which flows beyond all space and time. Castello di Rivoli will be the first museum of modern art in the world that, thanks to this agreement, will integrate the art of the past into the heart of a contemporary institution.

Gino Severini, Dancer in a restaurant (Cafe Americano, Café Anglais), 1914, oil on canvas, 54 x 46 cm. Collezione Fondazione Francesco Federico Cerrui per l'Arte on long-term loan Castello di Rivoli Museo d'Arte Contemporanea, Rivoli-Torino.

Felice Casorati, Joke: Eggs or Egs on a Green Carpet, 1914-15. Collezione Fondazione Francesco Federico Cerrui per l'Arte on long-term loan Castello di Rivoli Museo d'Arte Contemporanea, Rivoli-Torino.

Amedeo Modigliani, Woman in yellow dress - La belle espagnole, 1918, oil on canvas, 92 x 60 cm. Collezione Fondazione Francesco Federico Cerrui per l'Arte on long-term loan Castello di Rivoli Museo d'Arte Contemporanea, Rivoli-Torino.

Giorgio de Chirico, Metaphysical Muse, 1918, oil on canvas, 55 x 35 cm. Collezione Fondazione Francesco Federico Cerrui per l'Arte on long-term loan Castello di Rivoli Museo d'Arte Contemporanea, Rivoli-Torino.

Giorgio de Chirico, Metaphysical Selfportrait, 1919, oil on canvas, 60 x 50.5 cm. Collezione Fondazione Francesco Federico Cerrui per l'Arte on long-term loan Castello di Rivoli Museo d'Arte Contemporanea, Rivoli-Torino.

Giorgio de Chirico, The Departure of the Argonauts, 1922, mixed media on canvas, 54 x 73 cm. Collezione Fondazione Francesco Federico Cerrui per l'Arte on long-term loan Castello di Rivoli Museo d'Arte Contemporanea, Rivoli-Torino.

Wassily Kandinski, Plauderei Round (Round Conversation), 1926, oil on canvas, 51 x 47 cm. Collezione Fondazione Francesco Federico Cerrui per l'Arte on long-term loan Castello di Rivoli Museo d'Arte Contemporanea, Rivoli-Torino.

René Magritte, The Duo, 1928-29, oil on canvas, 54 x 73 cm. Collezione Fondazione Francesco Federico Cerrui per l'Arte on long-term loan Castello di Rivoli Museo d'Arte Contemporanea, Rivoli-Torino.

Man Ray, Harry Melville, ca. 1930, photograph, 22 x 16 cm. Collezione Fondazione Francesco Federico Cerrui per l'Arte on long-term loan Castello di Rivoli Museo d'Arte Contemporanea, Rivoli-Torino.

Paul Klee, Blüten der Nacht (Blossoms of the Night), 1938, pastel on cardboard on jute, 43 x 39.5 cm; 51 x 38 cm. Collezione Fondazione Francesco Federico Cerrui per l'Arte on long-term loan Castello di Rivoli Museo d'Arte Contemporanea, Rivoli-Torino.

Pablo Picasso, The Faun, 1946. Collezione Fondazione Francesco Federico Cerrui per l'Arte on long-term loan Castello di Rivoli Museo d'Arte Contemporanea, Rivoli-Torino.

Alberto Burri, Sacco and red (Sack and Red), 1954, acrylic, burlap and fabric on canvas, 100 x 86 cm. Collezione Fondazione Francesco Federico Cerrui per l'Arte on long-term loan Castello di Rivoli Museo d'Arte Contemporanea, Rivoli-Torino.

Francis Bacon, Study for a Portrait IX, 1957. Oil on canvas, 152.5 x 118 cm. Collezione Fondazione Francesco Federico Cerrui per l'Arte on long-term loan Castello di Rivoli Museo d'Arte Contemporanea, Rivoli-Torino.

Piero Manzoni, Achrome, 1959, kaolin on canvas, 73 x 60 cm. Collezione Fondazione Francesco Federico Cerrui per l'Arte on long-term loan Castello di Rivoli Museo d'Arte Contemporanea, Rivoli-Torino.

Andy Warhol, Portrait of Madame Rochas in Green, 1975, acrylic and silkscreen on canvas, 101.6 x 101.6 cm. Collezione Fondazione Francesco Federico Cerrui per l'Arte on long-term loan Castello di Rivoli Museo d'Arte Contemporanea, Rivoli-Torino.

Giulio Paolini, EBLA, 1977. Collezione Fondazione Francesco Federico Cerrui per l'Arte on long-term loan Castello di Rivoli Museo d'Arte Contemporanea, Rivoli-Torino.

Hermès 35cm Matte Cactus Alligator Birkin Bag with Palladium Hardware, P Square, 2012; Excellent Condition; 14" Width x 10" Height x 7" Depth, $50,000. 

CHICAGO, IL.- Continuing a trend that does not appear to be losing momentum interest in the rare and beautiful Hermès luxury handbags remained high at Heritage Auctions' Summer Luxury Accessories Signature Auction which closed June 28. Over $2 million was spent on 657 lots with all top ten lots adorned with the exquisite Hermès branding and made of either crocodile or alligator. 

The handbag featured on the back cover of the Summer Luxury Accessories catalog, an Hermès 35cm Matte Cactus Alligator Birkin Bag with Palladium Hardware achieved a final sales price of $50,000, along with the front cover feature, a one-of-a-kind Hermès Shiny Cactus Alligator & Feather Stromboli Bag with Sterling Silver Hardware, $38,750. 

Hermès Shiny Cactus Alligator & Feather Stromboli Bag with Sterling Silver Hardware, X, 2016, Pristine Condition; 5.5" Width x 5.5" Height x 3" Depth, $38,750. 

"Whether in person, on the phone or virtually, we were thrilled to bring our bidders from around the globe to the world-class city of Chicago," said Diane D'Amato, Director of Luxury Accessories at Heritage Auctions. Added D'Amato, "This particular collection featured rare, vintage, and 2017 handbags from Hermes with over one hundred handbags on display for viewing at our newest Heritage Auctions Gallery in Chicago's River North neighborhood." 

A stunning Hermès 25cm Matte White Himalayan Nilo Crocodile Birkin Bag with Palladium Hardware took top lot honors with a final sale price of $68,750 going to a live phone bidder. 

Hermès 25cm Matte White Himalayan Nilo Crocodile Birkin Bag with Palladium Hardware, Q Square, 2013. Pristine Condition; 10" Width x 8" Height x 5" Depth, $68,750

To celebrate the inaugural Chicago summer Fine Jewelry and Luxury Accessories auctions, Heritage Auctions hosted an online auction with proceeds benefiting PAWS Chicago. Online bidding for a pair of Cicada Coral, Diamond, Platinum Earrings and a beautiful Celine Black Leather & Natural Python Case Flap Shoulder Bag raised almost $5,000.  

The demand for Hermès Birkin handbags kept the style in four of the top five high value positions with the lone Kelly handbag in the top five an Hermès 20cm Shiny Black Porosus Crocodile Sellier Kelly Bag with Palladium Hardware realizing $42,500 and the last two top five positions being filled by an Hermès 35cm Shiny Makassar Porosus Crocodile Birkin Bag with Gold Hardware and an Hermès 35cm Matte Feu Alligator Birkin Bag with Palladium Hardware each selling for $40,000 apiece.  

Hermès 20cm Shiny Black Porosus Crocodile Sellier Kelly Bag with Palladium Hardware, I Square, 2005. Excellent Condition; 8" Width x 6" Height x 3" Depth, $42,500.

Hermès 35cm Shiny Makassar Porosus Crocodile Birkin Bag with Gold Hardware, X, 2016. Pristine Condition; 14" Width x 10" Height x 7" Depth, $40,000.

Hermès 35cm Matte Feu Alligator Birkin Bag with Palladium Hardware, R Square, 2014. Excellent to Pristine Condition, 14" Width x 10" Height x 7" Depth, $40,000.

Other luxury handbags in the front running group of Hermès were: 

Hermès Shiny Blue Electric Alligator Kelly Pochette Bag with Palladium Hardware, Q Square, 2013. Excellent Condition; 8.5" Width x 5" Height x 2.5" Depth, $36,250.

Hermès 35cm Shiny Fuchsia Porosus Crocodile Birkin Bag with Palladium Hardware, P Square, 2012. Very Good to Excellent Condition; 14" Width x 10" Height x 7" Depth, $32,500.

Hermès 35cm Matte Miel Porosus Crocodile Birkin Bag with Gold Hardware, A Square, 1997. Very Good to Excellent Condition; 14" Width x 10" Height x 7" Depth, $30,000.

Hermès 25cm Shiny Black Nilo Crocodile Sellier Kelly Bag with Gold Hardware, F Square, 2002. Very Good to Excellent Condition; 10" Width x 8" Height x 4" Depth, $30,000.

Jean Dubuffet, Personnage hilare (Portrait de Francis Ponge), 1947, oil on plaster on cardboard, 60.5 x 45.5 cm, collection Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, donation of the artist.

AMSTERDAM.- This summer, the Rijksmuseum and the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam are programming work by the French artist Jean Dubuffet (1901-1985). The Rijksmuseum is presenting sculptures by the artist in the museum gardens and, for the first time, the Stedelijk is exhibiting the entire group of Dubuffet works in its collection. 

How can you capture thoughts that shoot off in all directions, in a painting? And how can you represent a world that is beyond objective reality in a work of art? From the 1940s onwards, these were the questions that constantly preoccupied Jean Dubuffet. 

The first gallery of the exhibition presents paintings and lithographs made in the 1950s, when the artist experimented with materials not usually used in painting, such as asphalt and glass. Dubuffet’s compositions were also deliberately confusing: he worked with two overlapping perspectives – the scene seen from a frontal elevation, and the panoramic perspective. 

In the second gallery, the emphasis is on paintings and sculptures made during the 1960s, when Dubuffet was working on an ‘irrational world’, in a series of works in which he reduced figures, landscapes and objects to a tangle of black lines against a white background with accents of colour. The result is a mystifying illusion of hollows and bulges. 

Jean Dubuffet, Table amoncellante I, 1968, polyester cast vinyl cut, 108 x 115 x 73, collection Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam.

Edy de Wilde, director of the Stedelijk from 1963 to 1985, amassed a large collection of pieces by Dubuffet and, in the 1960s, staged exhibitions of his work. De Wilde’s acquisition policy favoured buying the work of contemporary artists, leading him to purchase a number of pieces directly from Dubuffet. Eager to ensure that a representative selection of his work would be seen in a European museum, the artist also gifted a number of pieces to the Stedelijk in 1965. 

In the 1950s and ‘60s, Jean Dubuffet was principally known as a painter, draughtsman and print-maker. Towards the end of the 1940s and throughout the ‘50s, he was instrumental in encouraging the widespread use of the term ‘art brut’, or raw art, for artwork created by the mentally ill, children, and autodidacts. The unadulterated and untainted creativity and power of such images were hugely inspirational for 20th century artists desperately in search of innovation – artists such as the Dutch members of the CoBrA group (Constant, Corneille, Karel Appel). As the 1960s progressed, Dubuffet’s work grew more graphic in nature, and the single human and animal figure was replaced by intricate scenes composed of contour lines around ‘cells’ in bright colours. 

The exhibition Jean Dubuffet: The Deep End is curated by guest curator Dr. Sophie Berrebi, lecturer in art history at the University of Amsterdam. 

In her essay for the catalogue of the Rijksmuseum, Berrebi writes of Dubuffet’s history with the Netherlands and the Stedelijk, a history that began when his work was discovered by Corneille and Karel Appel in Paris in 1947, and the first works acquired for the collection by director Willem Sandberg in the 1950s.

Jean Dubuffet, Grillade de boeuf, 1957, oil on canvas, 130 x 96, collection Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam.

Lot 1394. A blue and white rouleau vase, Qing dynasty (1644-1911). Height 47.5 cm. Estimated price €6.000 - €8.000. Result: €7.440. Courtesy Lempertz

Decorated with a continuous scene of figures in a rocky landscape, all below a band of ruyi sceptre heads, cloud scrolls and key-fret borders encircling the cylindrical neck. 

Lempertz. Asian Art II China, Tibetan/Nepalese Art, 18.06.2017, 14:00, Brussels

Lot 1395. Two blue and white baluster-shaped vases, Guangxu period (1874-1908). Height 29 cm. Estimated price €1.000 - €1.500. Result: €6.200. Courtesy Lempertz

Decorated with palace ladies, planters and trees. Restored. Wooden stands and covers. (2). 

Provenance: Private collection, Bochum

Lempertz. Asian Art II China, Tibetan/Nepalese Art, 18.06.2017, 14:00, Brussels

Lot 1396. Two blue and white bottle vases, Guangxu period (1874-1908). Height 19 cm. Estimated price €1.500 - €2.500. Result: €1.984. Courtesy Lempertz

Decorated in underglaze-blue with a) the Eight Immortals; b) the Three Stargods (sanxing) Fu (prosperity), Lu (status) and Shou (longevity). Each with an apocryphal Xuande six-character mark. (2). 

Provenance: Private collection, Southern Germany

Lempertz. Asian Art II China, Tibetan/Nepalese Art, 18.06.2017, 14:00, Brussels

Lot 1397. A blue and white baluster-shaped vase, 19th century. Height 24.5 cm. Estimated price €800 - €1.500. Result: €1.488. Courtesy Lempertz

Painted with a figure scene in a garden landscape. Restored. 

Lempertz. Asian Art II China, Tibetan/Nepalese Art, 18.06.2017, 14:00, Brussels

Lot 1381. A blue and white baluster-shaped vase, 19th century. Height 44 cm. Estimated price €2.000 - €2.500. Result: €3.720. Courtesy Lempertz

Decorated in underglaze-blue with a scene of ladies and hundred boys at play in a garden terrace. 

Lempertz. Asian Art II China, Tibetan/Nepalese Art, 18.06.2017, 14:00, Brussels

Lot 1400. A blue and white fishbowl, 19th century. Diameter 39.5 cm. Estimated price €2.000 - €2.500. Result: €3.720. Courtesy Lempertz

With rounded sides and a lipped rim, decorated in underglaze-blue around the globular body with a figure scene with pavilions and an altar.

Provenance: Private collection, Southern Germany 

Lempertz. Asian Art II China, Tibetan/Nepalese Art, 18.06.2017, 14:00, Brussels

Lot 25. Francesco Guardi (Venice 1712-1793), Venice: the Rialto Bridge with the Palazzo dei Camerlenghi, signed ‘GUARDI’ (lower left), oil on canvas, 47 1/8 x 80½ in. (119.7 x 204.3 cm). Estimate On Request. Price realised GBP 26,205,000 © Christie's Images Ltd 2017 

Provenance: Probably acquired in Venice in 1768 by Chaloner Arcedeckne, M. P. (1741-1804) of Glevering Hall, Suffolk and 1 Grosvenor Square, London, and by descent through his son, Andrew Arcedeckne, of Glevering Hall, and his daughter Louisa (d. 1898), wife of Charles Andrew Vanneck, 3rd Lord Huntingfield (1818-1897), by whom sold privately through Christie’s and Agnew’s to the following, 
Sir Edward Cecil Guinness, 1st Bt., later 1st Lord, and 1st Earl of, Iveagh (1847-1927), 24 July 1891, for £3,850, and by descent through Rupert, 2nd Earl of Iveagh (1874-1966) at Pyrford Court and his daughter Lady Honor Channon (1909-1976), to her son Paul Channon, Lord Kelvedon of Ongar (1935-2007).

Literature: G. A. Simonson, Francesco Guardi (1712-1793), London, 1904, no. 105.
J. Byam Shaw, ‘Guardi at the Royal Academy’, The Burlington Magazine, XCVII, January 1955, p. 14, figs. 18 and 15.
F. J. B. Watson, ‘Venetian Painting at the Royal Academy’, Arte Veneta, 1955, pp. 259-60 (dated to about 1760).
V. Moschini, Francesco Guardi, Milan, (2nd edition), 1956, p. 26, figs. 61 and 63.
A. Morassi, ‘Circa gli esordi del vedutismo di Francesco Guardi con qualche cenno sul Marieschi’, Studies in the History of Art dedicated to W. E. Suida, London, 1959, p. 352 (dated to circa1750-60).
R. Pallucchini, ‘Nota sulla Mostra dei Guardi’, Arte Veneta, 1965, p. 231.
A. Morassi, Guardi, I Dipinti, Venice, 1971, I, pp. 234, 407-8, nos. 524, 555 and 413; II, pls. 510 and 529, reissued 1987.
L. Rossi Bortolatto, L’opera completa di Francesco Guardi, Milan, 1974, p. 104, nos. 108, 234 and 318.
A. Morassi, Guardi, Tutti i disegni di Antonio, Francesco e Giacomo Guardi, Venice, 1975, p. 144, under no. 371, and 145, under no. 376; reissued 1984.
D. Succi, Francesco Guardi, Itinerario dell’Avventura Artistica, Milan, 1993, pp. 47-8 and 52, fig. 42 (dating picture to 1763-4).
A. Bettagno, Francesco Guardi, Vedute, Capricci, Festa, exhibition catalogue, Venice, Isola di San Giorgio Maggiore, 1993, p. 110.
M. Merling, ‘The Brothers Guardi’, The Glory of Venice: Art in the Eighteenth Century, exhibition catalogue, London and Washington, 1994, p. 311 (dating picture circa 1760-3).
F. Russell, ‘Guardi and the English tourist’, The Burlington Magazine, CXXXVIII, 1996, p. 10.
J. Bryant, Kenwood, Painting in the Iveagh Bequest, New Haven and London, 2003, p. 419.
C. Beddington, ‘Francesco Guardi, Venice, Canaletto and his Rivals, exhibition catalogue, London and Washington, 2010, p. 134 (accepting terminus post quem of 1768).

Exhibited: London, British Institution, 1831, no. 14 or 20 (lent by Andrew Arcedeckne).
London, Royal Academy, European Masters of the XVIII Century, 1954-5, no. 52.
London, Royal Academy, Italian Art and Britain, 1960, no. 555.
London, Royal Academy, and Washington, National Gallery of Art, The Glory of Venice, Art in the Eighteenth Century, 1994-5, no. 210 (catalogue entry by Mitchell Merling).
London, Kenwood House, Iveagh Bequest, on loan, 2008-10.
London, National Gallery, and Washington, National Gallery of Art, Canaletto and His Rivals, 2010-1, no. 56. 
London, Somerset House, Courtauld Institute, on loan, 2011-5.
Waddesdon Manor, Buckinghamshire, on loan, 2015-6.

Note: 

‘Venice! Is there a name in the human language that has made people dream more than that? […] It immediately stirs in one’s spirit a surge of wonderful memories and a world of enchanting dreams.’ G. de Maupassant 

This magnificent picture by Francesco Guardi is one of the celebrated pair of views of the Grand Canal at the Rialto painted in the mid-1760s which were arguably the most accomplished works of the artist’s early maturity as a view painter. The two are ambitious in scale and, for all the familiarity of their subject, startlingly innovative both in design and pictorial mood, standing thus among the signal masterpieces of eighteenth-century European art. That Guardi signed this picture suggests the importance he attached to it, and the way in which he anchored the composition on the pale rendered flank of the wholly insignificant building on the left is as visually arresting as this was original. Remarkably the picture has only been sold once – by private treaty though Christie’s in 1891 – since it was acquired in Italy for the Arcedeckne family. This helps to explain why it is exceptionally well preserved.  

Francesco Guardi was the second of the three sons of a minor painter, Domenico Guardi (1678-1716), whose family came from the Val di Sole and had been raised to the imperial nobility in 1643. He worked in association with his elder brother, Giovanni Antonio (1699-1760), principally on religious and decorative projects, and only turned to painting views in the late 1750s by when he was in his mid-forties. Although much admired both in England and France by the mid-nineteenth century, Guardi in his lifetime was much less fashionable than his predecessor Canaletto had been, although Pietro Edwards, the restorer and public servant who had been responsible for the selection of pictures for the Accademia at Venice, would in 1804 tell the sculptor Canova that his ‘cose’ (things) were ‘spiritosissime’ (very spirited), a view from which few would dissent today. How spirited a painter Guardi could be is evident in the flickering delicacy of touch and suffusing mastery of colour in both this picture and its pendant.  

The Rialto was the commercial heart of Venice in the way that the Basilica di San Marco and the Doge’s Palace with its appendages were central to the religious and political life of the Venetian Republic, La Serenisima. Guardi’s two pictures thus celebrate the role of Venice as a major entrepôt. His viewpoint is from the predecessor of the Palazzo Sernagiotto, as James Byam Shaw noted of the related picture in New York (see infra) in 1951. On the left is the Palazzo Civran which was remodelled in the seventeenth century. Beyond this is part of the façade of the predecessor of the later Palazzo Ruzzini and, to the left of the Rialto Bridge, the Fondaco dei Tedeschi, the warehouse of the German merchants, long famous for its external murals by Giorgione and Titian, crowned by tall chimneys that have since been removed: above this can be seen the tip of the campanile of the church of San Bartolomeo al Rialto, reconstructed in 1754. The supremely elegant Rialto Bridge itself was built in 1588-91 to the design of Antonio da Ponte. To the right of this is the renaissance Palazzo dei Camerlenghi designed by Guglielmo dei Grigi, and beyond this, after a space through which can be seen the Campo of the church of San Giacomo di Rialto, the arcaded Fabbriche Vecchie by a little-known architect, Antonio Abbondi; on the extreme right is the east end of Sansovino’s Fabbriche Nuove, begun in 1552, and, above this, the campanile of the church of San Cassiano. Gondolas pass on the canal and more are drawn up on the fondamenta below the Fabbriche Vecchie: the sunlight catches men walking on the fondamenta and stall keepers are seen between the arches of the Fabbriche Vecchie, four of which are protected by shutters. Sunlight falls from the west, evidently filtered between and through clouds of varying density, like those shown in the picture. 

THE VIEW OF THE RIALTO: PRECURSORS 

For this picture, as for the pendant Rialto Bridge from the Fondamenta del Carbon (fig. 1; Sotheby’s, 6 July 2011, lot 73, now in a private collection, measuring 120 x 203.7 cm.), Guardi was no doubt aware of works by his great predecessor, Canaletto, and also of pictures or an etching by Michele Marieschi (fig. 2). Canaletto’s earliest treatment of the subject, of 1725, was part of the miraculous quartet painted for the Lucchese merchant, Stefano Conti (W.G. Constable, Canaletto, Giovanni Antonio Canal, 1697-1768, Oxford, 1962 and subsequent editions, no. 234, now in the Museo Giovanni e Marella Agnelli, Turin). Later variations include that on copper at Goodwood (1727-8; fig. 3), the picture in the Royal Collection, and that from the Fitzwilliam Collection (Constable, nos. 235, 236 and 237). The Fabbriche Vecchie are shown from a viewpoint further to the right, so that the roofline slopes upwards in this direction, rather than downwards as in the picture under discussion. The existence of other pictures by Canaletto and numerous early copies of that in the Royal Collection attest to the level of demand for the subject. Marieschi painted a series of closely related pictures from a viewpoint closer to the Rialto than that adopted by Guardi (R. Toledano, Michele Marieschi, Catalogo ragionato, Milan, 1995, nos. V. 10.a-d), and also made a related etching (op. cit., no. V.10.e). In these the roofline of the Fabbriche Vecchie runs downwards to the right – but the Fabbriche Nuove are not shown: the flight of steps down to the water on the left of his composition, which do not appear in, for example, Canaletto’s view from a different angle from the Marlborough series (New York, Wrightsman Collection, Constable, no. 240), are an invention of the artist’s, as presumably is the wall lined at the top with flowerpots. Guardi selected a higher and specific viewpoint, the lateral window on the first floor of the precursor of the later Palazzo Sernagiotto, opposite the off-white rendered lateral façade of the first, and upper, storey of the low building that abuts on the Palazzo Civran. 

Fig. 1 Francesco Guardi (Venice 1712-1793), Venice, the Rialto Bridge from the Fondamenta del Carbon, oil on canvas, 120 by 203.7 cm.; 47 1/4 by 80 1/4 in. Sold for 26,697,250 GBP at Sotheby's London, 6 july 2011, lot 75© Sotheby’s Picture Library

Fig. 2 Michele Marieschi, Venice, the Rialto Bridge, circa 1743© The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Fig. 3 Giovanni Antonio Canal, il Canaletto, Venice, the Rialto Bridge © The Trustees of the Goodwood Collection, Bridgeman Images

This modest building serves to define the painter’s line of vision and establishes the level at which he expected the picture to be hung: the top of the left hand shutter of the unglazed opening is seen from below while the cornice of the low building with the chimney, also rendered white, immediately to the north of this – and thus closer to the viewer – is seen from above. Guardi clearly intended that the viewer’s eye would be drawn by the pale render of the walls of both buildings. He discretely placed his name – in capitals as if it were a tradesman’s sign rather than the more calligraphic signature in upper and lower case that is found on many of his earlier views – on the lowest of the dark timbers in the shadowed area at the very corner of the composition. 

The pendant (fig. 1), which is not signed, was composed in the reverse direction. The viewpoint is on the Fondamenta del Carbon in front of the Palazzo Bembo, and thus rather lower than that of this picture: the onlooker is drawn into the composition in the wake of the figures seen from behind who are about to cross the Ponte del Ferro; cloud gathers to the east, but the sky is clearer to the west. Low late afternoon sun illuminates both views. Guardi was evidently aware of Canaletto’s intermittent practice of supplying pendants with intersecting or complementary viewpoints. In this picture, the Palazzo Dolfin Manin with part of Palazzo Bembo, and thus the viewpoint of the pendant on the Fondamenta del Carbon, can be seen through the arch of the bridge and this is, no doubt deliberately, concealed from view by the sails of the moored vessel. Conversely, in the companion picture the lower part of the Palazzo Ruzzini and a section of that of Palazzo Civran are visible below the arch. 

The view of the Rialto from the north was no doubt popular not only for its compositional possibilities, but because the Ca’ da Mosto, where so many distinguished visitors to Venice stayed at the time, was further on, on the same side of the canal. Moreover, of course, the tourist who arrived in the normal way from Padua on the Brenta Canal or by one of the main roads to Marghera, would have seen the Rialto first from this direction.  

As has now been conclusively established by Succi (op. cit.) and the compiler (Russell, op. cit., pp. 4-11), Guardi only turned to view painting in the late 1750s. A significant proportion of his early views were acquired by three young Englishmen on the Grand Tour in 1758-9; Sir Brook Bridges, 3rd Bt.; John, Viscount Brudenell, subsequently Marquess of Monthermer; and Richard Milles. Brudenell obtained, with five other canvasses, Guardi’s first major picture of the subject, now in the possession of his sister’s descendant, the Duke of Buccleuch (Morassi, no. 549). These were taken from a viewpoint somewhat further to the west. Monthermer also acquired a view of the Rialto with the Palazzo dei Camerlenghi taken from a position to the east of that used for the Iveagh picture. The choice of viewpoint in the Iveagh canvas shows that Guardi sought to show the Rialto with both the Fabbriche Vecchie and the Palazzo dei Camerlenghi in such a way that the viewer has a sense of the prospect which lies beyond the broad arch of the bridge, and this to link the picture with its pendant.  

GUARDI’S RELATED DRAWINGS AND PICTURES

Autograph drawings at Bayonne and Berlin (figs. 4 and 5 respectively; Bayonne, Musée Bonnat, and Berlin, Kupferstichkabinett, Morassi, Disegni, nos. 371 and 376) agree with the picture not only in topographical detail but also in the positions of most of the boats, including that with the gondolier which is partly cut by the lower edge of the composition, and of many of the figures on the fondamenta. By analogy with other drawings of the period it is clear that the two, evidently drawn on site, were cut from a single panoramic sheet, giving an overall measurement of at least 264 x 760 mm. (the Louvre study for the Rialto Bridge from the Fondamenta del Carbon mentioned below measures 522 x 761 mm.). Moreover, the Berlin drawing shows eight bays only of the Fabbriche Vecchie. This might imply that the drawing was used first for the smaller (53.3 x 85.6 cm.) canvas in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (fig. 6; Morassi, no. 554), in which nine bays of this are shown, as against fourteen in the Iveagh picture. Thus it is possible that the smaller work antedated the latter. In the same way the drawing in the Louvre (Morassi, Disegni, no. 364) for the Rialto Bridge from the Fondamenta del Carbon corresponds in compositional field on the left not with the ex-Iveagh picture but with the smaller variant of this in the Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon (fig. 7; Morassi, no. 525), which is almost identical in size with the New York picture and surely a hypothetical pendant to that. It would be logical to assume that the Iveagh picture, in which an additional building is introduced to the left, followed that at Lisbon. But the drawing anticipates a closer grouping of the figures of the Iveagh picture rather than the looser arrangement of the Gulbenkian canvas. The complex relationship of the Iveagh pictures, the smaller variants and the drawings demonstrates that Guardi took particularly care in developing the design of works that were to be on an unprecedented scale among his vedute. As Byam Shaw wrote in 1954, the Rialto Bridge with the Palazzo dei Camerlenghi is of the ‘highest quality, still sombre in tone, but subtle and delicate in colour – bluishgrey, like oxidized silver, in the bridge and the Palazzo dei Camerlenghi, and warm brown in the Fabbriche Vecchie’. 

Fig. 4 Francesco Guardi, The Rialto Bridge © Musée Bonnat, Bayonne, France, Bridgeman Images.

Fig. 5 Francesco Guardi, Palazzo dei Camerlenghi with the Fabbriche Vecchie © bpk / Kupferstichkabinett, SMB

Fig. 6 Francesco Guardi, The Grand Canal above the Rialto © Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Fig. 7 Francesco Guardi, The Grand Canal at the Rialto Bridge, c. 1780-90 © 2017, Calouste Gulbenkian Museum, Scala, Florence.

Guardi only painted half a dozen largescale views, but, like earlier Venetian painters from the Renaissance onwards, he knew how important it was, when an addition to a canvas was necessary as a picture was to exceed the width of the loom on which this was made, to ensure that any join was effectively disguised. In this picture the horizontal join is some 25 centimetres from the bottom of the composition, running invisibly except when examined at very close quarters through the architecture and along the lower line of the shutters on the Fabbriche Vecchie.  

Senator Pietro Gradenigo, that assiduous recorder of the Venetian artistic world, stated that Guardi made use of a camera obscura. So, of course, had Canaletto in his time. Mitchell Merling, in his entry for the picture in the 1994 exhibition catalogue (p. 458) suggests that the use of this would account for the presence of ‘‘circles of confusion’ in [Guardi’s] paintings of the 1760s, such as are visible here, and may also have been responsible for the distortion in perspective’. The perspective in the two pictures is indeed manipulated. Canaletto was a master of such manipulation for compositional ends. Guardi’s flexibility of topographical approach is sometimes less noticeable than his predecessor’s, if only because the spectator is dazed by his atmospheric command. This is brilliantly exemplified in both the pictures, not least in that under discussion in which the render of the building in the lower left corner, intruding almost upon our space and startling in its realism, seems quite literally to stand between the viewer and the teeming life of the Grand Canal below.  

THE DATING OF THE PICTURE

When the Iveagh pictures first came to scholarly notice, a date of 1750-60 was proposed. The recognition that the rebuilt campanile of S. Bartolomeo was shown subsequently established a terminus post quem of 1754, as it is difficult to argue that the artist would have allowed for the completion of so relatively unimportant a structure or had access to the architectural project for this. Both canvases are in fact clearly later than the group of pictures which, as is stated above, we now know were sold in 1758-9. The Iveagh views evidently must also have followed a group of pictures of the same size as, but more advanced in style than, the largest of the pictures acquired in 1758-9, for which a date in the early 1760s is favoured by the compiler (Morassi, nos. 281, 322, 422 and 464; Russell, op. cit., p. 7). Merling, in the 1994 exhibition catalogue, proposed a date of circa 1760-3 for the two Iveagh pictures and observed that it was ‘generally accepted that, because of its ambitious size and evident accomplishment’ the Rialto Bridge with the Palazzo dei Camerlenghi was the picture exhibited in the Piazza S. Marco in 1764, as Gradenigo recorded on 25 April:  

Francesco Guardi, Pittore della contrada de’ S:ti Apostoli su le Fondamente Nove, buon Scolaro del rinomato […] Canaletto, essendo molto riuscito per via della Camera Optica, di pingere sopra due non picciole Tele, ordinate dà un Forestiere Inglese, le vedute della Piazza di S. Marco verso la Chiesa, e l’Orologio, e del Ponte di Rialto e sinistre Fabbriche verso Canareggio, oggi le rese esposte sui laterali delle Procuratie Nove, mediante che si procacciò con l’universale applauso.  

(ed. L. Livan, ‘Notizie d’Arte tratte dai notatori e dagli annali del N.H. Pietro Gradenigo’, Reale deputazione di Storia Patria per le Venezie, Miscellanea di Studi e Memorie, Venice, 1942, p.106)  

Gradenigo stated that the picture had been ordered by an English visitor. If the picture is indeed that seen by Gradenigo, the exhibited pendant was not the companion picture, which so clearly complements this and is inseparable in style from it, but an as yet unidentified view of the Piazza San Marco. The Iveagh pictures were evidently conceived as a pair, so it seems unlikely that either was intended as a pendant to a view of the Piazza San Marco, as yet unidentified. And it may prove that the picture Gradenigo saw was a variant of the composition.  

PROVENANCE 

The Iveagh pictures are traditionally stated to have been acquired by Mr Arcedeckne – the name was pronounced Archdeacon – in Italy, and thus presumably in Venice. Chaloner Arcedeckne (1743-1809) was the son of Andrew Arcedeckne of Gurnamore, Co. Galway, who had built up a substantial sugar fortune. He was educated at Eton and matriculated at Christ Church, Oxford, in 1760. He succeeded his father in 1763. This may explain why he seems not to have set out on the Grand Tour after leaving Oxford, presumably in the same year. He is, however, known to have been in Rome in February 1768 and arrived with his companion John Bohun in Venice on 20 August: the collector Charles Townley recorded that Arcedeckne set out on 7 September for Florence, where he attended the dinner to mark Sir Horace Mann’s investiture as a Knight of the Bath on 22 October. Thus, if Arcedeckne acquired the pictures he might have done so in 1768, which could in turn imply that the Rialto Bridge with the Palazzo dei Camerlenghi was a development from the work shown in 1764, although it is of course hypothetically possible that Arcedeckne took over a commission originally placed by another patron, or acquired a picture painted, like two of Canaletto’s larger London views, as a speculation. Apart from the earlier, even larger but perhaps less concentrated pair at Waddesdon, Guardi only painted two other views of similar size, and may well have found it difficult to find patrons for works of comparable scale and ambition. 

As was argued in 1996 (loc. cit.), some ‘tangential support’ is given to the dating of the Iveagh pictures to 1768 by the provenance of a pair of pictures formerly at Tissington Hall, Derbyshire, which are stylistically compatible with the Iveagh pictures, although less ambitious in scale than these. One of the two is a variant of the Buccleuch Rialto Bridge with the Palazzo dei Camerlenghi (Munich, Alte Pinakothek; Morassi, no. 551). There can be little doubt that these were obtained by William Fitzherbert, subsequently 1st Baronet, for whom lodgings in Venice are known to have been engaged in time for the Ascension Day ceremonies in the Spring of 1769. Thus it may prove that Guardi’s evolution as a vedutista in the 1760s was more gradual than some writers have proposed. It might be argued that a temporary reduction in the ranks of rich English visitors to Venice in the early 1760s as the Seven Years War drew to its end delayed Guardi’s development: Canaletto had been placed in the same predicament by the War of Austrian Succession and travelled to England in consequence. If this chronology is accepted, it took Guardi a decade to progress from the controlled touch found in the canvasses of the late 1750s to the mastery of atmosphere and commanding technical virtuosity expressed in the Iveagh pictures, which, as it were, set the standards for the painter’s developed style as a view painter. But in the decades that ensued Guardi never ventured to record his adopted city on the monumental scale of these justly celebrated masterpieces.  

Chaloner Arcedeckne in 1777 married Catherine Leigh, a pretty woman with a taste for fine dress if we can judge from the portrait attributed to Sir Joshua Reynolds, later in the Burton collection. They settled at Glevering Hall in Suffolk – where a new house of appropriate scale was built to the design of John White in 1792-4 – and he served as a Member of Parliament in 1780-6, a turbulent period of political history as the tensions resulting from the American War of Independence were expressed and resolved. His son and successor, Andrew Arcedeckne (1780-1849), was in 1826-31 Member of Parliament for Dunwich, a ‘rotten’ borough almost all of which was under the sea. He is known to have purchased works given to Canaletto from Alessandro Aducci in Rome in 1839 and lent the two Rialto views to the British Institution in 1831. With the exception of two views on the Grand Canal, lent by the Hon George Agar Ellis, later Lord Dover in 1829, no other works by the artist had previously been exhibited in London: Dover, who had acquired a large number of small works by Guardi, sent four of these to the 1831 exhibition, and ten in the following year, when H.A.J. Munro of Novar also lent a Venetian view. As no significant mature works by Guardi can be shown to have been in any readily accessible British collection, the Arcedeckne pictures were the first major pictures by Guardi that were available for study in London and may well have been seen at the exhibition by Turner (who had visited Venice for the first time in 1819) and other English landscapists of a generation which was in sympathy with the Venetian master’s interest in the expression of atmosphere. 

Andrew Arcedeckne was the father of Louisa, wife of his nephew, Charles Andrew, 3rd Lord Huntingfield (1817- 1897), whose mother Catherine had been the daughter of Chaloner Arcedeckne. After his death in 1849, the Arcedeckne inheritance was absorbed in that of a yet more prominent Suffolk family, the Vannecks, whose estates centred on Wyatt’s great house at Heveningham (fig. 8). The Huntingfields, like so many landed families, faced financial problems as a result of agricultural recession in the late nineteenth century. A solution was to sell works of art. The Guardis were sold privately, Christie’s acting for Lord Huntingfield and Agnew’s for the purchaser, the Irish brewer Edward Cecil Guinness, 1st Baron, and subsequently 1st Earl of, Iveagh (1847-1927), who was the firm’s outstanding client at the time. The price was £3,850.  

Fig. 8 Thomas van der Wilt, View of Heveningham Hall in Sufolk © Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford, UK / Bridgeman Images.

Lord Iveagh (fig. 9) was by any standard a remarkable collector, as the visitor to Kenwood can see. But the pictures included in the Iveagh Bequest only tell part of the story. For to the constellation of British portraits, including Gainsborough’s early Lady Howe, to the Cuyp panorama of Dordrecht, the Vermeer Girl playing a Guitar purchased privately from Lord Mount Temple at Broadlands and the great Rembrandt Self-Portrait (fig. 10) bought from Lord Lansdowne at Bowood, all now at Kenwood, must be added an equal number of masterpieces that were retained for the family: the early Rembrandt Judas returning the Thirty Pieces of Silver from the Charlemont collection (Private collection); Watteau’s Italian Comedians in the National Gallery of Art, Washington (fig. 11) and the L’Accord Parfait, recently acquired for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Stubbs’s Gamekeepers (or more accurately Lord Torrington’s Agent and Keeper) (Private collection); Landseer’s Stag at Bay (Dublin Castle, on loan); and yet more outstanding English portraits. The two Guardis were among the pictures which the family kept. These were hung at Pyrford Court, and inherited by Rupert, 2nd Earl of Iveagh’s daughter, Lady Honor Channon, wife of the Anglo- American member of Parliament, Henry (‘Chips’) Channon, M. P. (d. 1957), whose visual taste was matched by the acute observation of his times revealed in his published diaries. Their son, Paul Channon, M. P. for Southend from 1959 until 1997 when he was elevated as Lord Kelvedon, was, in the opinion of Sir Denis Mahon and others, the most constructive Minister for the Arts of recent decades.  

Fig. 9 Henry Marriott Paget, Edward Cecil Guinness (1847–1927), 1st Earl of Iveagh© English Heritage, Kenwood

Fig. 10 Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn, Self-Portrait, c. 1665, The Iveagh Bequest, Kenwood House © Historic England, Bridgeman Images.

Fig. 11 Antoine Watteau, The Italian Comedians, c. 1720 © The Samuel H. Kress Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. (1946.7.9).

GUARDI: ARTISTIC LEGACY 

Venice’s fortunes fluctuated with the fall of the Republic to Napoleon in 1797, but despite a decline in the city’s mercantile and political power, it remained a hugely popular destination for tourists and travellers alike. From the early nineteenth century, the city became increasingly popular among writers for its lyrical beauty and romantic grandeur. Countless authors of the nineteenth century, from Lord Byron to Henry James, visited the city, captivated by ‘this strange dream on water’ (C. Dickens, Pictures of Italy, London, 1846, p. 119). This literary passion for the city ushered in a flourishing of renewed artistic interest. Artists soon travelled to Venice from across Europe to paint its famous landmarks and reproduce in paint ‘all the splendour of light and colour, all the… air and the…history’ of the lagoon (H. James, Italian Hours, New York, 1909, p. 25). Many of these views, seeking to replicate the mood of the city as well as its topography, fell under the influence of the examples Guardi had painted before them. Unlike his great contemporary Canaletto, Guardi’s paintings focused not only on a meticulous rendering of carefully observed architecture and topography, but also on the mood and atmosphere of his subjects; light and movement was expressed with animated impasto brushwork, which brought to the fore the shimmering quality of light so evocative of the city, distancing his work from the smoother, more polished surfaces of Canaletto. The influence of Guardi’s spirited handling of his Venetian views, suffused with atmospheric luminosity, can be traced through a variety of later paintings by some of the nineteenth and twentieth century’s most significant painters. Guardi anticipates J.M.W. Turner’s heavily atmospheric and dreamily nostalgic views of Venice, such as the remarkable Giudecca, La Donna della Salute and San Giorgio (fig. 12; Christie’s, New York, 6 April 2006, lot 97, $35,856,000, now private collection). Likewise, members of some of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century’s most important and progressive art movements used Guardi’s work as a point of departure when capturing Venice in oil, especially in France, where he was so popular with collectors in the mid-19th century. Guardi often revisited the same views of the city throughout his career, painting them at different times of the day to capture the fluctuating effects of light in the lagoon. This practice was one which came to define some of the most important and influential paintings of Monet, who travelled to Venice in 1908. One such sequence was began in 1899, after he had acquired land with a pond near his house in Giverny in 1883 and constructed a Japanese footbridge over the water. During the summer of 1899, he produced a series of twelve views of the bridge, including one in the Musée d’Orsay, Paris (fig. 13), all from the same viewpoint but differing subtly in their use of colour, light and atmospheric effect - much in the same way that Guardi returned time and again to the Rialto Bridge.  

Fig. 12 Joseph Mallord William Turner, Giudecca, La Donna della Salute and San Giorgio, Private collection.

Fig. 13 Claude Monet, The Waterlily Pond: Green Harmony© Musée d’Orsay, Paris, Bridgeman Images

‘Guardi’s love of movement, of pale tones and luminous skies, is based less on naturalism than on the heightened rococo of his century: its love of lightness, elegance and grace.’ M. Levey.

Christie's. Old Masters Evening Sale, 6 July 2017, London, King Street

Lot 1409. A wucai dish, Late Ming dynasty. Diameter 27.4 cm. Estimated price €800 - €1.000. Result: €1.488. Courtesy Lempertz

Decorated with a scholar with his servant and flowers to the rim. Oven sand baked onto the bottom. 

Lempertz. Asian Art II China, Tibetan/Nepalese Art, 18.06.2017, 14:00, Brussels

Lot 1410. A large famille verte dish with a scene from the story of Mu Guiying, Kangxi period (1662-1722). Diameter 55.3 cm. Estimated price €50.000 - €70.000. Result: €64.480. Courtesy Lempertz

Elaborately painted to the interior with the legendary female warriors from the story of the Generals of the Yang Family of the Song dynasty, comprising the famous Mu Guiying and her loyal maid Yang Paifeng and other Yang widows, who took over to lead the imperial army and defeated the invasion of the Western Xia. Apocryphal Chenghua six-character mark. 

Lempertz. Asian Art II China, Tibetan/Nepalese Art, 18.06.2017, 14:00, Brussels

Lot 1411. A famille verte saucer-shaped charger, Kangxi period (1662-1722). Diameter 38.2 cm. Estimated price €1.200 - €1.800. Result: €1.488. Courtesy Lempertz

Decorated with a qilin and a phoenix in a garden landscape with taihu rock and a wutong tree in front of a fence. To the left of the scene a planter with a pine bonsai. An artemisia leaf in a double circle to the base. Frittings to rim slightly polished. Restored. 

Lempertz. Asian Art II China, Tibetan/Nepalese Art, 18.06.2017, 14:00, Brussels