Guglielmo Ciardi (1842 - 1917) Lagoon, 1880 Oil on canvas 35 x 64 cm Signature: lower right, 'Ciardi' Date: '1880', on the ivory sail of a boat on the left Distinctive elements: label with inventory number 'CE 09/22'; 'CIARDI' in felt-tip pen on the verso of the frame Provenance: Leslie Hindman, Chicago (1993); private collection, Venice Bibliography: Maurizio Agnellini, "Ottocento italiano. Painters and Sculptors. Opere e Mercato", Milan, 1994, table XX; Volker and Erwin Silbernagl, ed., "Pittori a confronto", exhibition catalogue, Daverio, 1995, p. 35; Nico Stringa, "Guglielmo Ciardi. Catalogo generale dei dipinti', Crocetta del Montello, 2007, p. 221, no. 128 Exhibition: "Pittori a confronto", Milan, Galleria Sibernagl, 1995 Conservation status. Support: 90% (rintelo) Conservation status. Surface: 70% (paint loss and repainting) From 1873 onwards, Guglielmo Ciardi established himself as a painter of the Venetian lagoon, the predestined heir of Canaletto, Guardi and Bellotto (Stefano Bosi, "Il cantore della laguna veneta: I cicli delle 'basse maree' e dei 'pescatori in laguna'", in Enzo Savoia, Francesco Luigi Maspes, ed., "Guglielmo Ciardi protagonista del vedutismo veneto dell'Ottocento", Crocetta del Montello, 2013, pp. 92-95). A pupil of the school of landscape painting established by Domenico Bresolin at the Academy of Fine Arts in Venice, the artist was able to create a happy marriage between the Venetian tradition, whose atmosphere and palette he took up again, and the most innovative research of his time between 'macchia' and 'vero'. The peculiar viewpoint of the land seen from the sea or from one of the islets in the lagoon had allowed him to make this synthesis and to work on the motif by capturing the infinite variations of the effects of light on the surface of the water. The sea is always calm and the rare human figures are industrious, in a harmonious interpenetration between man and nature, transfiguring a serene and timeless dimension. These are true cycles, in which every atmospheric detail and human activity is noted over the years through paintings that are all different from one another. After a stay in Paris to visit the 1878 Universal Exhibition, Ciardi's painting became more mature and international, as attested by the work under examination from the American market and dated 1880 on the ivory-coloured sail of the sixth boat from the left. The brushstroke becomes smoother and the colour contrast between the clumps of soil and the water more evident. A woman with two children watches from a small pier, which closes the composition, as the sails of the fishing boats unfurl over the lagoon. The barely cloudy sky is reflected placidly on the surface of the sea, which marks the entire contour of the painting. The artist skilfully orchestrates the chromatic variations, moving downwards from brown to blue, along the horizon line from blue to ivory of the buildings, sketched in a miniaturistic manner, and to the right from blue to cobalt of the hills in the distance. Teresa Sacchi Lodispoto