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An Altar-Piece and Other Figure Paintings by Francesco GuardiAuthor(s): Michelangelo MuraroSource: The Burlington Magazine, Vol. 100, No. 658 (Jan., 1958), pp. 3-10+13Published by: The Burlington Magazine Publications Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/872379 .

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THE BURLINGTON MAGAZINE NUMBER 658 VOLUME C JNUARY 1958

MICHELANGELO MURARO

An Altar-piece and other Figure Paintings

by Francesco Guardi

THE exhibition of Ioo Venetian drawings from the Janos Scholz collection, New York, was inaugurated on 2nd August 1957 at the Art Historical Institute, Giorgio Cini Founda- tion, in Venice. One of these drawings (Fig.5) is Francesco Guardi's preparatory study for an overdoor, showing a little bridge beside a half-ruined tower, a few houses and trees, and the usual macchiette beneath a cloudy sky.' The chief interest of this drawing, for students of Guardi's work, lies in the fact that on the reverse is drawn the outline of the frame of an altar-piece, with a note in Francesco's handwriting of certain Venetian measurements in oncie and piedi and this inscription: Vano osia Lume della Palla dell'altare Maggiore dei SS: Pietro, e Paulo nella Parocchia di Roncegno (Fig.4). The first time I saw this drawing and inscription, in New York, I determined to make investigations in Roncegno, although I had little hope of finding the painting in question because of the damage and disturbance caused in the Valsugana during the first World War, and also because it seemed unlikely that a work by Francesco Guardi could have been overlooked, especially in a health resort like Roncegno, much visited for its baths and for its pine woods. The trouble I took to verify the manuscript notes could not have been more highly rewarded: the altar-piece was still there and, one may say, perfectly preserved. In order to make the picture more widely known I at once arranged with the local authorities for it to be shown at the exhibition in Venice, side by side with the drawing which had provided the clue to its discovery, since I was convinced that this painting, perhaps more than any other, could be of valuable assistance in resolving some fundamental problems in the controversial matter of Guardi's

ouvre. The altar-piece represents the titular saints of the

Church of Roncegno, St Peter and St Paul adoring the Trinity (Fig.2). Anyone acquainted with the drawings in the Correr Museum will remember the fluted column which appears on the left in the Roncegno painting (Inv. No.603i), and a preparatory study for the two cherubs shown almost in the centre of the altar-piece (Figs.3, 7). The figures of the Saints are in the iconographical tradition of Sebastiano Ricci, but the grandeur of their presentation suggests a possible in- spiration from Jacopo Bassano's altar-piece with the same Saints, once in the Church of the Umilta in Venice and now

preserved in the Galleria Estense at Modena. The group of the Trinity recurs in a small altar-piece by Francesco in Vienna and, perhaps more precisely, in the picture of St. John of Matha which I found some years ago2 at Pasiano di Pordenone, and which I still believe to have been painted in collaboration by Gian Antonio and Francesco Guardi (Figs.6, io).

Let us consider in some detail the Roncegno picture which, for its size as well (300 by 150 cm) may be considered as one of Francesco's most unusual works. We notice the exquisitely pictorial effect of the red binding which stands out against the white and gilt pages of the open book; the arabesques of black shrubs in the foreground, lit here and there by gleams of white; the reds shimmering into yellows, and the blues of St Peter's robe; the greens shot through with yellow lights and the folds of glowing amaranth in the robes of St Paul, who leans upon an enormous sword, its hilt adorned with gold (Fig.9). The tilt of this sword has obviously been altered by the artist; it originally reached the ground nearer to the Saint's left foot. The gleams in the stormy sky (reminiscent of the Verona Capricci and of other later works by Francesco) contrast with the blue-green of the back- ground, at times but a transparent veil over the underlying burnt-brick priming. The group of the Trinity acquires effects of greater distance through the luminosity of the pale yellows and the transparent blues of the globe and of the drapery. Whereas the two angels' heads near the dove seem woven of light, the two pairs of cherubs at each side of the Trinity are dark and opaque; they were, in fact, added by another hand at a later stage, and will be mentioned again, as a decisive factor in establishing the date of the altar-piece.

This Roncegno painting presents no single detail which could be quoted as evidence against its attribution to Francesco Guardi. Characteristic are the rosy tipped clouds, the drapery with its angular folds, the high lights of gleaming yellow, the porous quality of the whites which resist the invasion of colour as in other works by Francesco, the mysterious impasti in which every brush-stroke seems to con- tain a fabulous range of colour, and above all, the figure of St Paul (Fig.8), whose ample robe quivers like a landscape - one of the most intense and revealing expressions of Francesco Guardi's art. In this altar-piece the artist has risen to the height of his vast composition, presenting every element in its own restless dynamic force. The superimposed planes of vision overlap in the vibrant atmosphere. The cloud that presses forward and obscures the column, the halo round

1 M. MURARO: 'Cento disegni veneti della CollezioneJanos Scholz,' Catalogo della Mostra, Venice [1957], No.92, p.53, pl.92 A-B-C. White paper. Drawing in charcoal, pen and brown ink, 1 6 by 215 mm. The outline drawn around the view leads one to suppose it is a preparatory study for the decoration of an overdoor. Signed in the left-hand bottom corner: f' Guardi. On the reverse, notes of measurements written in pen and ink: Piedi 2, onzie 4, 2 oncie, Piedi N.2: On: 3, 2 onzie and the outline of the frame of an altar-piece with a note in Francesco Guardi's handwriting transcribed above. Photo, Negativi fotografici Giorgio Cini 10499-10500. 2 M. MURARO: 'NovitA su Francesco Guardi', Arte Veneta, HI [1949], p.123.

3



AN ALTAR-PIECE AND OTHER FIGURE PAINTINGS BY FRANCESCO GUARDI

Christ's head in which the Cross is lost in a mist of light, are devices for presenting the spectator with ever-receding planes. This superimposing of planes reminds us of the words of Benedetto Marcello, Vivaldi's enemy and the champion of the more conservative style in music, when he parodied the theatrical painters whom he detested: 'The modern painter', he writes, 'need not understand perspective, architecture, drawing, chiaroscuro, etc.: for he arranges his architectural scenes not upon one or two planes, but on four, or even six, adjusting them in various ways, so that the spectator's eye may be all the more gratified by this variety'.3 In just this

way, Francesco Guardi deliberately multiplies his scenic effects so as to embrace a vision that can no longer be defined as classical or subject to strict perspective laws, but are

deliberately spatial. The Roncegno altar-piece is unsigned, and I have not yet

been able to find the contract for its commission. I am still

looking for it in the Episcopal archives of Feltre, to which diocese the church at that time belonged. However, even if the name of the artist should never come to light in the sur-

viving documents, there can be no shadow of doubt that the

painting is by Francesco Guardi, as the Scholz sketch con- firms. Besides being one of the most monumental works he

painted, it offers the possibility of a precise dating - which makes it particularly important for the student of his work. In fact it must have been painted many years after the death of his elder brother Gian Antonio (22nd January I760), so that in this case there can arise no such controversy as still

rages around Vigo d'Anaunia and the Church of the Angelo Raffaele.

The present Church of Roncegno was built through the efforts of the parish priest Francesco Bruni. He is still famous in that region for the way in which he managed to collect the funds necessary for its erection, going around begging through the valleys of the Trentino and even as far as Venice. The grandiose building was certainly more than the village could afford out of its own resources. In fact, when the

good priest died in 1776 it still seemed impossible to replace the humble, provisional campanile with one more in keeping with the rest of the building. Until 1888 (for only in that year was the new belfry erected) the neighbouring villages con- tinued to mock Roncegno with the taunt still familiar to all:

'Roncegno, cesa grande e campanil de legno'.4 The first stone of the parish church had been laid on

23rd April 1758. On I2th December 1772, writes a con-

temporary 'the altar table was placed in position and the

parish priest Francesco Bruni had the joy of blessing it and initiating and continuing the ecclesiastical functions in this

church'.5 The writer refers, not to the grand marble altar which was built only after the priest's death, but to the rudi-

mentary table of the provisional altar. Even after the Church of Roncegno got its roof in 1772 the interior must have looked almost bare; Montebello himself reports that in 1793 it was 'still far from complete'. An episcopal letter dated

gth December 1776 authorizes the painting of the Via Crucis, which we know to have been blest on 2nd May I777. The fourteen Stations of the Cross had been painted by a mediocre

craftsman, whose name has remained unknown; the same hand painted the portrait of the priest, Francesco Bruni, still to be seen in the Presbytery, and, in a very maladroit manner added the four cherubs mentioned above to Francesco's

altar-piece. It is precisely because of this circumstance that we can assign the picture to about the year 1777.

As we see from the inscription on the Scholz drawing, as soon as the grand marble altar was placed in position Francesco Guardi must have made notes in situ of the dimensions and outline of the picture which he had been asked to paint. He was therefore in the Trentino on several occasions, and not only in I778 and 1782, the dates proved by the document found by De Maffei6 and the notes on the Manfroni landscapes.7 After his brother's death he was called

upon to supervise the property inherited in the Mastellina; it is therefore probable that he paid frequent visits to the

province of his forefathers. The lakes and mountains of the Trentino inspired many of his drawings and capricci, and were always present to his mind. Certain phrases of Monte-

bello, when describing the Valsugana (where 'lakes, rivers, woods and wild countryside were lost in silent solitude... among the mists which rose from the marshes') help us to understand the character of some of Guardi's landscapes.

The Church of Roncegno was consecrated on Ist July 1782 by the Bishop of Feltre, Andrea Ganassoni, but work went on in it for some decades longer. Not until 1796 did Giacomo Caminada8 construct the elegant pulpit. In 1804 Dr. Francesco Trogher bought in Trent a seventeenth-century painting for the altar of the Annunciation, after having erected, also at his own expense, the altar to Our Lady.9 As always in the case of Francesco Guardi's works, even the

altar-piece at Roncegno, as we have already remarked, seems bereft of any specific documents. In the archives of the church we find the painting only mentioned disparagingly; 'There are no artistic or precious objects in the Parish Church of Roncegno', is the report on the occasion of one pastoral visit, 'nor is it known that there ever were any'. In the ecclesiastical inventory drawn up by the parish priest Francesco Meggio in I9IO the principal altar, ten metres

high, is mentioned as 'the finest ornament in the whole church'. The altar-piece is briefly dealt with: 'The Trinity is very pleasing, not so the figures of the Apostles. There is a

plan to replace this altar-piece' continues the narrator, 'with

another, and the altar certainly deserves a better'. In August 1915, during the first World War, Roncegno

was bombed'0 and some shell splinters struck the painting, causing slight damage to the cloud beneath the figure of Christ, to the head of St Peter, and St Paul's right leg. The

altar-piece was taken to Trent to be restored by the artist

Ady Werner (1925) under the direction of the Soprinten- denza alle Belle Arti. It was declared to be the work of a

good painter, and the parish priest wrote that it was 'pleasant to look at'. We do not know how it was that Francesco Bruni had been able to obtain for the high altar of his church a

3 B. MARCELLO: II teatro alla moda, Venice [1887]. 4 0. BRENTARI: Guida del Trentino, Bassano [I891]; OBEROSLER: Bagni di Roncegno; Guida illustrata del Trentino, Trent [1902]. 5 G. A. MONTEBELLO: Notizie storiche, topograficdle e religiose della Valsugana e di

Primiero, Rovereto [17931, p.305.

6 F. DE MAFFEI: Gian Antonio Guardi pittore difigura, Verona [1948]. 7 P. PANIZZA: Francesco Guardi, Trent [1912]. 8 S. WEBER: Artisti trentini e artisti che operarono nel Trentino, Trent [1933], P-45- It is Weber who gives us the name of the architect of the church of Roncegno, Carlo Bianchi. 9 These and other items of information here quoted come from documents

preserved in the parish church of Roncegno. 10 A. MOSCHETTI: I danni ai monumenti e alle opere d'arte delle Venezie nella guerra mondiale, 19z5-18, Venice [x932], p.605-

4



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3. Detail from a drawing of Two Cherubs by Francesco Guardi, for the Altar-piece reproduced in Fig. 2. (Correr Museum, Venice.)

4. Verso of the sheet reproduced in Fig.5- 5. Preparatory study for a Landscape overdoor by Francesco

Guardi. Signed. Charcoal, pen and brown ink on white paper, I1-6 by 21-5 cm. (Janos Scholz Collection, New York.)

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painting by Francesco Guardi." A clue may possibly be found in the name of the architect of the church, Carlo Bianchi da Brieno (Como) who may have belonged to the same family as the Pietro Bianchi with whom Francesco collaborated in 1785 for the design of the theatre on the Grand Canal, published by Fiocco.12

The discovery of the painting at Roncegno relegates to the pre-history of Guardi studies such remarks as this by Modi- gliani: 'Guardi as a figure painter, Guardi as the author of altar-pieces, seems to us, and not to us alone - let us say it at once with all frankness - a myth which still awaits transla- tion into the realms of reality'.'3 The campaign initiated by Fiocco to force criticism to acknowledge Francesco Guardi as a figure painter14 finds further and perhaps most decisive confirmation in this picture which is one of the latest of Francesco's known works in this genre. An unexpected result of all this is that through his well-attested figure paintings we are able to date and to assess the whole of his output. Much has been achieved since 1919, but in spite of the most assiduous research, I believe we are still far from that realtd critica which Pallucchini believed had already been attained.15 'After 1755', writes this well-known scholar - however, the Miracle of St Hyacinth, documented 176316 and now the Roncegno altar-piece flatly contradict his hypothesis - 'the activity of Francesco Guardi as a figure painter had been set aside, by the artist himself'. Moreover, now that we know the rich colours, contrasting with the russet ground, which Francesco still loved to use in the years between I760 and 1770, we can no longer categorically affirm with Pallucchini: 'Guardi's colour, in the develop- ment of his style, tends to become ever lighter and to assume clear silvery tones . . .' It is not therefore merely because of the almost complete lack of direct documents and contem- porary testimony that the art of Francesco Guardi is so difficult to define; it is probable that his own path was perpetually tortuous and that his art was accompanied by continual technical research and spiritual unrest.

After the researches of G. Fiocco an essay by W. Arslan seems to have thrown most light on his

personality."• Following his interpretation, which has been fully confirmed by the altar-piece of Roncegno, I myself must now revise my former judgement, and assign to Gian Antonio and his workshop, the figure paintings which in an article written in 1949 I grouped together under a hypothetical 'first manner' of Francesco Guardi.'s Besides Francesco's signed works'9 and

those which undoubtedly are by him,20 I shall now propose other examples which will perhaps serve to enrich our know- ledge of him as a figure painter. I shall list these according to a parabola which his style is presumed to have traced, and begin with those executed under the aegis of his elder brother Gian Antonio, when Francesco was working under his direction in the family workshop.

I owe to the courtesy of Hyatt Mayor the permission to publish a drawing in the Metropolitan Museum (No.8o- 3-49I), formerly attributed to Sebastiano Ricci (Fig.2o); the methodical stroke and the evident relation to seventeenth- century painting suggest it is the work of Francesco's youth- ful period. There is no doubt that until 1760 the direction of the Guardi workshop was entirely in the hands of Gian Antonio; as always happened in these families of artists and craftsmen, one person only assumed the responsibility of the firm and impressed his own temperament and style on most of the work that left the shop.21 It is possible that in the case of the Guardi family the authority of the elder brother was even more decisive because, coming as it did from the Trentino, the family must have brought with it to Venice the mentality derived from the tradition of the Maso chiuso, still dominant in some mountain districts, according to which the paternal inheritance could not be divided among the brothers but remained in the hands of the eldest, who thus supervised the business and the welfare of the whole family. If we look closely, we shall see that it is only after the death of Gian Antonio that the documents speak of Francesco. In I760 he got married, in 1761 he was inscribed in the fra- ternity of Venetian painters, in 1763 he received the order for the paintings in S. Benedetto at Murano, in 1764 Pietro Gradenigo records an exhibition of two paintings in Piazza San Marco - and so forth.22

11 That Roncegno was not content to have only works by local craftsmen is shown also by two ceramic statues which adorn the grand marble altar. The Madonna and the St John are in fact works by Gerolamo Franchini, from designs by the French artist Jean Pierre Varion, perhaps more direct copies than those of the Victoria and Albert Museum, dated 1783, published by LANE (Faenza [I934]).

The frescoes on the walls and roof of the church are by Valentino Rovisi of Moena in Val di Fiemme. 12 G. FIOCCO: 'Francesco Guardi pittore di teatro', Dedalo

[1933]. 13 E. MODIGLIANI: 'Capolavori veneziani del '7oo ritornati in Italia', Dedalo

[1924-5]. 14 G. FIocco: 'Un capolavoro ignorato del Settecento veneziano', Rassegna d'Arte [1991]; Francesco Guardi, Florence

[19231]. 15 R. PALLUCCHINI: La pittura veneziana del Settecento, Bologna [1952]. 16 R. GALLO: 'Nota d'archivio di Francesco Guardi', Arte Veneta [1953], p.153. 17 w. ARSLAN: 'Per la definizione dell'arte di Francesco, Gian Antonio e Nicol6 Guardi', Emporium [x944]. 18 This group of works should perhaps be considered as the masterpieces of Venetian Rococo, which Gian Antonio Guardi, born in Vienna as R. BASSI RATHGEB has demonstrated (Arte Veneta [1955]), endowed with a liveliness and an effervescence which cannot be explained simply by reference to local culture.

I have dealt with the relations between Venice and Viennese Rococo in my report on the Ist International Congress for Figurative Arts: Importanza del- l'ambiente viennese e della pittura prealpina nella pittura veneziana del '7oo, Florence

[i948]. I quote the principal paintings mentioned, following the order observed

in my article: Stories of Joseph. Milan, Lutomirski coll. Neptune and other paintings in Palazzo Labia, Venice. Altar-piece from the Belvedere of Aquileia. Organ Loft, Church of the Angelo Raffaele. Vision of St John of Matha. Pasiano di Pordenone, Parish Church. Virgin in Glory, with Saints (drawing). Florence, Uffizi. Seven Sacraments (drawings). Venice, Correr Museum. Beheading of St John the Baptist (drawing). Florence, Uffizi. Peasant boy (drawing). Venice, Correr Museum. Venetian Pageantry (drawings). Venice, Cini coll.; Oxford, Ashmolean Museum; various American museums. Mythologieal Scenes, formerly in Palazzo Robillant and now at the Italian Embassy in Paris. David and Goliath (drawing in the Rasini coll. exhibited with others at Zurich). For other works besides the above-mentioned the reader is referred to the article by A. MORASSI: 'A signed drawing by Antonio Guardi and the problem of the Guardi Brothers', THE BURLINGTON MAGAZINE [I9531]. 19 Two allegoricalfigures in the Ringling Museum of Sarasota. Saint adoring the Eucharist. Trent, Museum. Portrait of Andrea Dolfin. Rome, Carandini coll. Madonna. Vicenza, Tecchio coll. Pieth. Munich, private collection. This list does not include drawings. so Holy Family. New York, Kreisler coll. (a signed study for this work is in the Berlin Print Room). Miracle of St Hyacinth. Vienna, Museum (painted in 1763 for the Church of S. Pietro Martire in Murano). 21 J. BYAM SHAW: The Drawings of Francesco Guardi, London [1951]. 29 For a complete documentation on this subject see v. MosCmm: Francesco Guardi, Milan [1952].

7




The tabernacle door for the Parish Church of Poffabro, a mountain village above Maniago, may be assigned to the

period of closest collaboration between the two brothers. A certain simplicity in design recalls the art of Tiepolo (Fig.I 2). 'He was brother-in-law to the famous painter G. B. Tiepolo', wrote Giovan Maria Sasso to the Abbe Lanzi about Fran-

cesco, 'and he seem to have repeated Tiepolo's manner in his

pictures, although they are of a different character'.23 A Madonna and Child in a private collection in France (Fig.I I) seems to be by Francesco, and of the same period as the

Allegories at Sarasota (detail, Fig.I3). There seems no reason to doubt the signature and the date (1747) on these, obliter- ated during a recent restoration; the proof that it is indeed a work of Francesco's is offered by the detail here reproduced, which we owe to the courtesy of K. Donahue (Fig. 18). This constitutes one of the few certain points in his activity before

1760. The Sarasota Allegories, although painted in the Rococo

spirit of Gian Antonio, already reveal the anti-academic forms characteristic of Francesco. A drawing of St Teresa

(Fig.I15) in the Metropolitan Museum resembles two studies from the Correr Museum.24 I went to Fiesso d'Artico to

verify the inscription added to the drawing, but I found the Villa Correr had been destroyed at the beginning of the nine- teenth century, and I could get no information about Francesco Guardi's altar-piece there.25

In this drawing also the refined delicacy of Rococo at its

best, as seen in the treatment of drapery, is in striking contrast to Francesco's harsh strokes, especially the scroll-like lines of the Saint's robe. Ragghianti is unwilling to assign to the Master26 figures drawn so heavily, almost crudely, as in these two drawings from the Correr (Figs.I4, I6). These

Allegories, massive and twisted as if hewn out of wood, illus- trate that revolt against the academic style which charac- terizes the art of Francesco after 1760: they seem to be the

counterpart, in drawing, of paintings like the Tecchio Madonna and the Munich Pietd. Once these works of Fran- cesco's have been accepted as authentic, we see at once how far removed he is from - not to say the very antithesis of- the

mentality and aesthetic attitude of his elder brother. Gian Antonio had received an education in conformity with the

dictates of the official school, and although he adopted the

technique and happy improvisation of the more independent continental schools, he never sought to deny the principles handed down to him. Francesco, on the other hand, rebelled

against any suggestion of academism. The only painter who influenced him was Magnasco, full of the dynamism and restlessness of the seventeenth century. Even in the structure of the human body Francesco rebelled against all established canons. The nervous drawing of macchiette like the one here

reproduced (Fig.I7), taken from a painting in the National

Gallery of Washington, shows how little he was bound to

tradition, or even held by interest in reality. For this reason his rare portraits are quite exceptional. We possess one sheet in the Correr Museum which is important because, being unquestionably his, it proves that he tried to perfect his powers in this field also. These figure studies are works of the imagination, preparatory sketches for the paintings recently brought to light by Morassi, who assigns them to

1780.27 The head of an Oriental (Fig.2 I) in a private collection in Milan, must be added to the series, although richer in Rembrandtesque colour and suggestion. It would be interesting to trace the influence exerted upon eighteenth- century Venetian art by Dutch painting (cf. a beautiful

drawing (Fig.19) in a French collection), and above all by the famous collection of Rembrandt engravings put together by Anton Maria Zanetti. The Tiepolo family knew them and

reproduced them in paintings and engravings, thus establish-

ing the popularity of this genre. However, there is little in common between these imaginative studies and the portrait in the M. L. Hermanos collection in New York which, for its

profound spirituality, stands almost alone among Guardi's works (Fig.22). The whitish-greys of the collar, the brilliant

purples, the quivering yellows and blues, and the nervous stroke of the brush which bites into the thick material in the

attempt to record every detail of the person portrayed, are so

many proofs of Francesco's wholehearted absorption in the task of painting figures. He has grafted upon the eighteenth- century culture of Tiepolo and Piazzetta a deep devotion to

certain inventions of the Cinquecento. This portrait was painted some decades later than the Trent Saint, and is almost con-

temporary with the Country Boy, formerly in the possession of Barozzi, but in this figure contact with reality enabled Francesco Guardi to bequeath to us, in the field of portrait

painting as well, one of the most intense images in the whole

Venetian eighteenth century.

2 This note, preserved by the Soprintendenza alle Gallerie, Florence, is transcribed in extenso by M. MURARO: Disegni veneziani del Sei e Settecento, Florence

['953]. 24 Metropolitan Museum, No.37-i65-77. R. PALLUCCHINI: I disegni di Francesco Guardi al Museo Correr, Venice [1942], Nos.9 and 59b. 25 M. MURARO: Ville della Provincia di Venezia, Treviso [x953], p.I09. 26 C. L. RAGGHIANTI: Epiloghi guardeschi, Florence [i9531].

27 A. MORASSI: 'Settecento veneziano inedito', Arte Veneta [1949-50].

K. G. BOON

Bouts, Justus of Ghent, and Berruguete IT ought to be relatively easy to review the Bouts exhibition at Brussels after so many recent publications have shed light on various problems connected with his art. But the trouble is that no basis of agreement has been reached out of all the

conflicting views, so that Friedlander's more consistent con-

ception of Bouts, which has often been attacked in recent

years, has not been replaced by any more satisfactory one. After Voll had created his Master of the Perle de Brabant,

this double of Bouts has always cast his shadow across Bouts

biographies, but at no time has he taken on the semblance of

a really tangible figure. Even Baldass, who, in his discussion

of Sch6ne's book on Bouts, banished a second vague personality, the Master of the Miinchener Gefangennahme, to the

realm of ghosts, felt compelled to recognize the existence of

the Munich-born Perle de Brabant Master, although he was

more cautious in the choice of works he attributed to him.

He left him the fragments of a Nativity in Berlin and Paris, the Moses and the Burning Bush at Philadelphia, and the small

8



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I 1. Madonna, by Francesco Guardi. Canvas, 38 by 38 cm. (Private Collection, France.)

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12. Annunciation and Adoration of the Eucarist, by Francesco Guardi. Panel, 53 by 2o cm. Tabernacle Door. (Parish Church, Poff- abro, near Maniago.)

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. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13. Detail from Allegory, by Francesco Guardi.

(John and Mable Ringling Museum, Sarasota, Florida.)



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14. Allegory of Hope, by Francesco Guardi. Pen and wash, 21 by 12-2 cm. (Correr Museum, Venice.)

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15. St Teresa, by Francesco Guardi. Pen and bistre wash on white paper, 39-6 by 23-2 cm. (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.)

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I6. Allegory of Faith, by Francesco Guardi. Pen and wash, 21 by 12-2 cm. (Correr Museum, Venice.)

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17. Detail from a Capriccio with the Castel Sant'Angelo, by Francesco Guardi. (National Gallery, Washington.)

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i8. Detail from Allegory, by Francesco Guardi. (John and Mable Ringling Museum, Sarasota, Florida.)



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19. Outdoor eating and drinking scene, by Francesco Guardi. Pen, 7"5

by 8-5 cm. (Private Collection, France.)

20. Madonna, by Francesco Guardi. Red chalk on greenish paper, 15-2 by 13 cm. (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.)

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21. Head of an Oriental, by Francesco Guardi. Panel, 9 by 7 cm. (Private Collec- tion, Milan.)

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22. Portrait of a Man, by Francesco Guardi. Canvas, 54'5 by 44'5 cm. (Hermanos Collection, New York.)



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