Best Pamono After Gabriele Bella, Venice, Ponte Delle Guglie, 1790, Oil on Canvas, Framed

View of Venice with the Ponte delle Guglie (or Cannaregio Bridge, as it was formerly called)

circa 1750/60

oil on canvas (45 x 60 cm – framed 58 x 73 cm)

This view of Venice, which immortalizes the Ponte delle Guglie over the Cannaregio Canal, is a work of excellent quality attributed to Gabriele Bella (Venice 1730–1799), one of the protagonists of the magnificent 18th-century Venetian vedutism. His painting is characterized by an eclectic taste, influenced by the illustrious Canaletto prototypes.

The quality and typology of the figures that animate the painting, as well as the compositional style, particularly noting the rendering of the architecture, suggest a date to the second half of the 18th century. The panorama is rendered with remarkable narrative verve. While maintaining Canaletto’s structure, our author freely intervenes in describing the daily activities of navigation and strolling in Venice, with a scenic composition also derived from Marieschi.

Active throughout his career in Venice, Bella worked for a long time exclusively for the Giustiniani family, a family of patrons who commissioned a grandiose series of approximately seventy Venetian views for their home (now the Querini-Stampalia art gallery), in which he depicted the festive life of the Serenissima in its final century.

This group of celebrated canvases is complemented by a body of work the painter executed for the rest of his clients, a series of views in a more traditional style, depicting important places and buildings, to which our painting can also be linked.

Extremely well executed, characterized by a subtle luminosity and a delicate color palette, enhanced by the contrast between light and shadow, the canvas is a fascinating testimony to 18th-century Venice, imbued with a poetic quality that effectively captures the lagoon atmosphere.

The view, in good condition and recently relined, is enhanced by a beautiful gilded frame.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

The work is sold with a certificate of authenticity and a descriptive iconographic sheet.