The Garden of Palazzo Contarini dal Zaffo
Francesco Guardi (Italian, 1712–1793)
Late 1770s
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Classification
- Painting
- Dimensions
- 48 × 78 cm (19 × 30 5/8 in.); Framed: 63.5 × 92.7 × 6.7 cm (25 × 36 1/2 × 2 5/8 in.)
- Culture
- Italy
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Painting and Sculpture of Europe
- Credit line
- Gift of Marion and Max Ascoli Fund
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed
View at the Art Institute of Chicago
About this work
A member of a family of painters in Venice, Francesco Guardi is renowned for his lively views of the most recognizable monuments of this picturesque city and for his engaging architectural fantasies, or capricci. Wealthy travelers making the grand tour of Europe—considered an essential part of an education for upper-class men—provided an important market for such views. In this case, however, the patron was not a foreigner passing through Venice, but John Strange, who lived in the city on the lagoon as the British resident, or representative.
This view of the garden of a private house in Venice was highly unusual for Guardi. On the right is the rear facade of the Palazzo Contarini dal Zaffo; the front faces the Grand Canal. The artist’s main subject here is the palace’s formal garden, a luxury in Venice’s crowded urban environment. Elegant couples stroll through the garden’s geometric parterres. Guardi’s attention to the play of light further animates the scene—a shadow cast by an unseen building in the foreground divides the composition and contrasts with the bright light reflected off the facade of the residence and the distant, shimmering lagoon on the left.
These…
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
