GUARDI, Gianantonio
(b. 1699, Wien, d. 1760, Venezia)

Minerva

1751-53
Fresco mounted on canvas
Museo del Settecento Veneziano, Ca' Rezzonico, Venice

This ceiling fresco makes up a set with three other frescoes. They were originally in the Palazzo Barbarigo-Dabalà at Angelo Raffaele. The four frescoes were covered with whitewash during the nineteenth century and only rediscovered by chance during some restoration works to the building in 1936. On that occasion they were detached and mounted on canvas and taken to the Ca' Rezzonico. Despite their precarious condition after such treatment, these works - the only frescoes by Guardi to have come down to us - still clearly show his Rococo decorative talent, made light and joyous by the use of soft, almost pastel colours, and by the characteristic 'open' forms of his pictorial style.