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an image of a painting of a ruined building with people walking around itan old painting of a man riding a horse in front of a ruined buildingan oil painting of a landscape with a ruined building in the foregroundan old wooden door with a plaque on the side of ita sculpture of a man standing in front of a white wall
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102 - Francesco GUARDI (Venice, 1712 – 1793) Architectural capricc…
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Estimate €40,000 - €60,000
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Description
Francesco GUARDI (Venice, 1712 – 1793) Architectural capriccio with figures in the lagoon, Venice Oil on panel, parquet-style Architectural capriccio with animated figures in the lagoon, Venice, oil on panel, by F. Guardi 10.03 x 7.08 in. 25.5 x 18 cm Provenance: Collection of Jeanne Charlotte Louise Marthe de Rothschild, Baroness Leonino (1874–1929) and her husband Abraham David Leonino (1867–1911); Inherited by his brother; Collection of Henri de Rothschild (1872–1947); Then passed down through the family; Private European collection Bibliography: Antonio Morassi, *Guardi I dipinti*, Venice, 1973, reprinted in 1984, vol. I, p. 446, no. 728, not illustrated Fascinated by Italy and its painters, Baroness Charlotte de Rothschild, an aesthete and talented watercolourist, brought back from her numerous visits to the peninsula a myriad of paintings, including major works from the Quattrocento, now held in public collections through bequests. Having visited Venice on several occasions, she developed a marked fondness for the art of Francesco Guardi, a taste she shared with other members of the family, such as Ferdinand at Waddesdon Manor, and which has been passed down through the generations. After 1870, Charlotte thus acquired twelve works by Guardi.¹ Shortly before her death, she decided to bequeath her works by Guardi, as well as those by Chardin, Boilly and Drouais, to her grandson Henri. In his Parisian mansion at 33 Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, which he inherited from his grandmother, Henri de Rothschild brought together his beloved grandmother’s remarkable collection of old masters. More than two hundred 18th-century paintings were displayed on the ground floor.² Fascinated by her taste and erudition, Henri spoke of his grandmother in these glowing terms during a reception in 1929 at the Château de La Muette: ‘The art collections you have admired this evening were assembled by her. All I had to do was to inherit her legacy and to reverently preserve the works of art she had gathered with her sure and refined taste’³. Henri’s sister, Jeanne, wife of the Italian Abraham David Leonino, also owned works by Guardi—three fine examples of which we present here—which she bequeathed to Henri upon her death in 1929. Further acquisitions complemented these bequests, as evidenced by the pair of Venetian capricci purchased on the Paris art market in 1962 by the descendants of Henri de Rothschild. Distinctive amongst all the great Venetian ‘vedutisti’ for his heavy brushwork and the silvery light of his vibrant views, Francesco Guardi produced numerous architectural capriccios with great vigour. Born into a family of painters, he was trained from a very young age by his elder brother Gianantonio, who became master of the bottega upon their father’s death. Until the age of fifty, Francesco worked and collaborated in various workshops, before taking over the family business, rather late in life, around 1761. These new responsibilities gave the painter the opportunity to develop his own style and to create his vedute, for which he is regarded as one of the leading Venetian artists of the 18th century. His vedute proved highly popular with foreign visitors to the City of the Doges, mainly English aristocrats keen to bring back picturesque mementoes of their Grand Tour to their estates. Collected throughout Europe in the 18th century, Guardi’s works enjoyed enduring popularity amongst 19th-century art lovers, a trend that continued into the mid-20th century. Unfolding like a theatrical scene bisected by a diagonal line of force, this caprice reveals the subtle interplay of perspective between the intertwined arches of the ruins in the foreground, on the left, and the view opening out towards the lagoon in the background, on the right. The complementary colour scheme chosen by Guardi also reinforces the contrast in this interplay, between the orange-brown of the ground and the ruins and the azure blue of the sky and the distant waters. 1. Pauline Prévost-Marcilhacy, *Les Rothschild. A Dynasty of Patrons in France, Volume I, Paris, 2016, p. 194. 2. Quoted in the book by Pauline Prévost-Marcilhacy, Les Rothschild. A Dynasty of Patrons in France, Volume II, Paris, 2016, p. 215. 3. Ibid. We would like to thank Mr Charles Beddington for kindly confirming the authenticity of this work, based on digital photographs, in an email dated 1 June 2026. Francesco GUARDI (Venice, 1712 – 1793) 25.5 x 18 cm
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About the sale The Rothschild taste, passed down through the generations: A pied-à-terre on the Champ-de-Mars
Auction location
Auction time 09/22/2026 at 2:30 PM
Pictures credits: Contact the Auction House
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