Lot 3076* - A200 Old Master Paintings - Friday, 01. April 2022, 02.00 PM
FRANCESCO GUARDI
(1712 Venice 1796)
Portrait of a young woman from the Tiepolo Family, most probably Elena (1726–1776).
Oil on canvas.
86.5 x 75.5 cm.
Certificate:
Dario Succi, 10.1.2015 (copy).
With a written study by Dr Sabrina Norlander Eliasson, Senior Lecturer at the University of Stockholm, on the iconography of the sitter.
Provenance:
- Sale Christie's London, 5 Dec. 2012, lot 249 as Zuccarelli.
- Sale Koller, Zurich, 27 March 2015, lot 3083.
- Private collection, Belgium.
Literature:
Dario Succi: Guardi. Catalogo dei dipinti e disegni inediti. Azzano Decimo 2021, no. 57, pp. 42-43, colour ill. p. 41.
This portrait of a young woman painted in subtly harmonised pastel tones is one of the finest examples of Francesco Guardi's portrait painting, and was included with a full-page colour illustration by Dario Succi in his 2021 supplement to the catalogue of the works of Francesco Guardi. The young lady seated on a balcony looks at the viewer resolutely. The light falling from the left foreground makes her blue eyes and fair skin shine in contrast with the falling darkness of the sunset in the background. The composition draws on the long tradition of female portraiture dating from the Renaissance, in which the sitter is shown in a solitary room by a balustrade, with a view to the outside. Guardi skillfully combined here a closely observed, intimate family portrait with the representational style of a magnificent official portrait for a high-ranking personage.
The painter was in fact related to the sitter. Francesco Guardi, born in Venice, was linked through his sister Cecilia (1702-1779) to the family of the painter Tiepolo. In 1719 Cecilia married Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (1696-1770), whom she met some years before at the boarding school of Santa Maria dei Derelitti, when Tiepolo painted the five arches of the church. The wedding was held in secret because the Guardi family was at that time in financial difficulties and could not contribute a dowry. Cecilia and Giambattista had ten sons of whom two, Giandomenico (1727–1804) and Lorenzo (1736–1776), followed their father's profession. In 1757 the 21-year-old Lorenzo portrayed his mother Cecilia in a beautiful pastel picture, which is located now in the Museo del Settecento Veneziano, Ca'Rezzonico, Venice (inv. no. 1211). The similarity of the features depicted in our portrait of the young woman with those of Cecilia suggests that this might be one of her daughters, that is, a niece of Francesco Guardi.
The elegant embroidered dress of the subject corresponds exactly with Venetian fashion at the time. The carefully executed carnations, mimosas and wisteria on the silver dress of the sitter, as well as the rose in her hand and forget-me-nots in her hair, are stylistically similar to Francesco Guardi's floral compositions in the Palazzo Barbaro, Venice (see Succi, Dario: Il fiore di Venezia. dipinti dal Seicento all'Ottocento in collezioni private, Azzano Decimo 2014, nos. 163-164). Dario Succi dates our portrait to the late 1760s. Dr. Sabrina Norlander Eliasson will likewise publish the painting offered here in an article about Italian portraiture of the 18th century. She points out that the rose in the hands of the sitter, as well as the orange blossoms on her dress, indicate that the creative background of our painting was a forthcoming or recently celebrated wedding. Among the four daughters of Cecilia and Giambattista Tiepolo only two married: Elena (1726–1776) in 1745 at the age of 19 and Orsola Maria (1734–1791) in 1774 at the age of 40. On the basis of the sitter's age and Guardi's painting style in the mid-1740s, Dr. Eliasson Norlander suggests that the subject is Elena, the niece of Francesco Guardi, and has dated the painting accordingly to 1745.
CHF 50 000 / 70 000 | (€ 51 550 / 72 160)
Sold for CHF 55 200 (including buyer’s premium)
All information is subject to change.