VENETO PAINTER OF THE 18TH-19TH CENTURY Capricci with Palladian buildings Oil on canvas, 55X76 cm Provenance: Milan, Salvetti Gallery (second label on the back) Milan, private collection The paintings are based on two famous ideas by Canaletto and depict a transfiguration of a Venetian view in a Palladian key. In this case we see in the centre a bridge almost identical to the one in the Windsor view. In the image we also recognise two famous buildings in Vicenza, the Palladian basilica and the Palazzo Chiericati. The gondolas, cargo boats, burchi, and macchiette tell us that we are in Venice, but only the typical bend in the canal, a glimpse of the Fabbriche Nuove, abnormally positioned to the left of the bridge (while they are actually on the right) suggests that the site is a transfiguration of Rialto. Both works are part of a group of replicas such as the one that was in the collection of Senator Ettore Conti in Milan in 1925 (Modigliani 1925, p. 44, table 49), the traces of which have been lost (Constable ; Links 1989, II, no. 458); one with slight variations passed through the London antiquities market in 1972 (Constable ; Links, no. 458); another slightly larger one, now in a private collection in Bergamo, (Pallucchini 1973, pp. 199-200; Constable ; Links, no. 458b); while a further redaction with only the Rialto Bridge according to Palladio's design, belonged to the series of thirteen overdoors painted by Canaletto for Consul Smith between 1743 and 1744, now in the Royal Collections at Windsor (Constable ; Links, no. 457). Reference bibliography: G. W. Constable, Canaletto. Giovanni Antonio Canal 1697-1768, London 1976, ad vocem