Jacopo Fabris, Italian 1689-1761- The Rialto Bridge from the North; oil on canvas, 60 x 101.5 cm. Provenance: Private Collection, UK. Note: The present work is based on plate VII from the series of fourteen engravings entitled 'Prospectus Magni...

Jacopo Fabris,

Italian 1689-1761-

The Rialto Bridge from the North;

oil on canvas, 60 x 101.5 cm.

Provenance: Private Collection, UK.

Note: The present work is based on plate VII from the series of fourteen engravings entitled 'Prospectus Magni Canalis Venetiarum' by Antonio Visentini (1688-1782), published in 1735. The plates were themselves derived from the twelve views of The Grand Canal (c.1730) by Canaletto (1697-1768) which were formerly owned by Joseph Smith (British Consul in Venice), then purchased by the young King George III in 1762, and which are today in the Royal Collection, UK [see RCIN400668]. Visentini’s engraving 'Il Ponte di Rialto con il Palazzo dei Camberlenghi' is reproduced in Dario Succi, ‘La Serenissima Nello Specchio Di Rame’, Vol.1, 2013, p.192, no.9. Fabris left Venice for good in 1720 and so the majority of his Venetian views are indeed based on the engravings and paintings of other artists.

This specific view of The Grand Canal undoubtedly interested Fabris as at least two other versions by him are known (see Antonio Morassi, ‘Anticipazioni per il vedutista Jacopo Fabris’, Arte Veneta, XX, 1966, p.279; and exh. cat. ‘Canaletto, Venice and its Splendours’, Treviso, 23 October 2008-5 April 2009, p.189, fig.62). The Rialto Bridge is shown from the north, with an assemblage of sixteenth-century buildings around it. At its position in the centre of the natural archipelago, the Rialto was one of the first areas in Venice to be settled and has ever since been the city’s commercial centre. The bridge, initially constructed in wood, was the only crossing of the Grand Canal until the Accademia and Scalzi bridges were built in the 1850s. The present bridge was built in around 1590, an impressive stone structure with a single span of 28 metres incorporating two rows of workshops. The corner of (presumably) Palazzo Civran runs down the left edge of the painting and the early sixteenth-century Fondaco dei Tedeschi, the offices of the German traders (now the city post office), is seen obliquely. To the immediate right of the bridge is the Palazzo dei Camerlenghi, the seat of the financial officers of the Republic, rebuilt in the 1520s in a restrained Renaissance style on an old five-sided plan. Further right is the block of offices and workshops known as the Fabbriche Vecchi and also constructed in the 1520s. The overall positioning and proportions of the view are loosely faithful to their actual appearance.

Fabris specialised in painting such architectural views in Venice. He was in Rome in his early years and was likely in contact with Canaletto who had arrived in the city in 1719. For much of his life he worked in Germany, as a court painter at Karlsruhe (1719-21), in Hamburg (1724-8), and at the Berlin Opera in the service of Frederick II the Great. In 1746 he moved to Copenhagen and entered the court of Frederick IV, subsequently teaching architecture and perspective at the Academy of Art, Charlottenbourg. Dario Succi has suggested that the present work was painted towards the end of his life.

We are grateful to Dario Succi for confirming the attribution of the present lot.
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