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Provenance

Art market, 1936.[1] Dr. Gustav Mez, Switzerland; (Rosenberg and Stiebel, New York);[2] purchased October 1951 by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[3] gift 1961 to NGA.

[1] Hellmuth Allwill Fritzsche, Bernardo Bellotto, genannt Canaletto, Burg-bei-Magdeburg, 1936: 116, no. V.120. More probably the early provenance is the same as the companion painting (see NGA 1961.9.64), as was stated in Saemy Rosenberg's letter of 27 September 1951 to the Kress Foundation (copy in NGA curatorial files).

[2] When Rosenberg and Stiebel sold the painting to the Kress Foundation, the provenance was given as "a Swiss private collection" (see the 1951 Rosenberg letter mentioned in note 1). Stefan Kozakiewicz, Bernardo Bellotto, translated by Mary Whittall, 2 vols., Greenwich, Connecticut, 1972: 2:234, no. 295, identified the collector as Dr. Gustav Mez, who was a German industrialist resident in Switzerland.

[3] The bill of sale is dated and marked paid on 23 October 1951 (copy in NGA curatorial files, see also The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/1548).

Exhibition History

1956
Paintings and Sculpture from the Kress Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1956, no. 9.
1991
Venedigs Ruhm im Norden, Forum des Landesmuseums Hannover, Hannover; Kunstmuseum Düsseldorf im Ehrenhof, Düsseldorf, 1991-1992, no. 9, repro.
1999
The Triumph of the Baroque: Architecture in Europe 1600-1750, La Palazzina di Caccia di Stupinigi, Turin; Montreal Mus. of Fine Arts; Natl. Gal. of Art, Wash., D.C.; Centre de la Vieille Charité, Marseille, 1999-2001, no. 228 (shown Turin, Montreal).

Technical Summary

The support is a rather coarse, open-weave fabric of medium weight and plain weave. The ground appears to be a warm, gray-brown layer that was smoothly applied. Two imprimatura layers appear under the paint surface, although their extent could not be determined: a reddish brown layer beneath the trees and a lighter brown tone under the water. A black underdrawing was used to outline the windows. The oil paint is granular with large pigment particles, although less so than the companion painting. The paint was applied wet-over-dry in thick, opaque layers. The handling is extremely fluid in the figures and some outlines of the architecture. Incised lines appear randomly in the ground and paint layers, particularly in the architecture; no general perspective lines appear, although they presumably were used. A line was incised into the top layer of paint to place the horse and carriage near the wall at the lower right.

The tacking margins have been removed, but rather strong cusping is visible along the left and right sides. The varnish is moderately discolored and there are yellowed varnish residues in the interstices of the paint. The sky has been heavily inpainted, presumably to compensate for severe abrasion. The painting was lined by William Suhr in 1951. Examination under ultraviolet light suggests that the painting has been inpainted during the course of at least two other treatments.

Bibliography

1936
Fritzche, Hellmuth Allwill. Bernardo Bellotto, genannt Canaletto. Burg-bei-Magdeburg, 1936: 116, no. VG 120.
1956
Paintings and Sculpture from the Kress Collection Acquired by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation 1951-56. Introduction by John Walker, text by William E. Suida and Fern Rusk Shapley. National Gallery of Art. Washington, 1956: 32, 34, no. 9, repro. 35.
1959
Paintings and Sculpture from the Samuel H. Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1959: 256, repro.
1965
Kozakiewicz, Stefan. "Un pittore quasi sconosciuto, Lorenzo Bellotto, figlio di Bernardo e una serie bellottiana di vedute di Roma." In Venezia e la Polonia nei secoli dal XVII al XIX. Edited by Luigi Cini. Venice, 1965: 98.
1965
Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 13.
1968
National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 6, repro.
1972
Fredericksen, Burton B., and Federico Zeri. Census of Pre-Nineteenth Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections. Cambridge, Mass., 1972: 24.
1972
Kozakiewicz, Stefan. Bernardo Bellotto. Translated by Mary Whittall. 2 vols. Greenwich, Connecticut, 1972: 2:234, no. 295.
1973
Shapley, Fern Rusk. Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools, XVI-XVIII Century. London, 1973: 168-169, fig. 321.
1974
Camesasca, Ettore. L'opera completa del Bellotto. Milan, 1974: 107, no. 171, pl. 43B.
1975
European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 24, repro.
1979
Shapley, Fern Rusk. Catalogue of the Italian Paintings. 2 vols. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1979: 1:59-60; 2:pl. 34.
1984
Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 350, no. 489, color repro., as The Castle of Nymphenburg.
1985
European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 44, repro.
1996
De Grazia, Diane, and Eric Garberson, with Edgar Peters Bowron, Peter M. Lukehart, and Mitchell Merling. Italian Paintings of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1996: 18-22, repro. 21.
1998
Rottermund, Andrzej. "Bernardo Bellotto's Unknown View of Munich," Artibus et historiae 38 (1998): 9, 10, fig. 3, 19 n. 4.

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