CANALETTO
(b. 1697, Venezia, d. 1768, Venezia)

Capriccio with a Portico

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Etching
Private collection

This etching shows a landscape with three arches of an arcade in the foreground, behind which a country house and the ruins of Roman monuments can be seen. Francesco Guardi's Capriccio with Venetian Motifs (Museo di Castelvecchio, Verona) is based on this etching. However, Guardi borrowed several motifs and omitted others. Guardi has taken the portico, which Canaletto showed intact, but reduced it to a dilapidated fragment; furthermore he has transformed the rectangular forms of the characteristic house in Canaletto's etching into a much less stately, asymmetrical building with a slanted roof.




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