ZANETTI, Anton Maria II
(b. 1706, Venezia, d. 1778, Venezia)

Standing Female Nude

1760
Etching, 262 x 128 mm
British Museum, London

The Fondaco dei Tedeschi, which formed the headquarters of the German merchant community of Venice, occupies a prominent site on the Grand Canal, immediately next to the Rialto Bridge. The decoration of the principal, western façade of the Fondaco was entrusted to Giorgione, who is documented as having completed his task before the autumn of 1508. His work is known mainly through a set of eighteenth-century etchings, and all that survives of the originals is a single ghostly fragment of a standing female nude. The etchings show a series of male and female nudes, which were arranged in broad friezes above the first- and second-floor windows.