Francesco Guardi

(Venice 1712–1793)
The Holy Family with the Infant Saint John the Baptist, Saint Anne and Saint Joachim,
oil on canvas, 75.5 x 58.5 cm, framed
Provenance:
with Julius H. Weitzner, London;
with Galerie Silvano Lodi, Munich, 1970s;
sale, Christie’s, London, 10 July 1981, lot 75 (as Francesco Guardi);
Private European collection

Literature:
L. Rossi Bortolatto, L’opera completa di Francesco Guardi, Milan 1974, pp. 112–113, no. 401 (as Francesco Guardi);
A. Morassi, Guardi. I dipinti, Venice 1984, vol. I, pp. 339–340, cat. no. 170, vol. II, fig. 192 (as Francesco Guardi)

The present painting is registered in the Fototeca Zeri under no. 71575 (as Francesco Guardi).

Francesco Guardi is well known for his Venetian 'vedute' and capricci 'painings'. His figurative oeuvre, such as the present painting is less familiar, despite the fact that he produced altarpieces and religious compositions characterised by the same sensitivity and vibrancy that distinguish his view paintings. The present composition is a spirited example, intimate in scale and design, which illustrates the artist’s talent as a figurative painter. Morassi describes it as a very beautiful work and dates it to the artist’s late period (see A. Morassi 1984, in literature, p. 340).

Francesco Guardi was the last great master of Venetian 'vedutisimo', view painting. He trained in the family studio with his elder brother Gian Antonio and spent his entire life in Venice. He began as a figure painter and only at an advanced stage in his career, probably around the mid-1750s, when he was already in his maturity, did he begin to dedicate himself to view painting, owing to considerable demand. Guardi was also a history and genre painter, a portraitist, as well as a painter of landscapes and 'capricci', all of which attained great acclaim among his Venetian contemporaries and patrons.