Public data from the Cleveland Museum of Art. Learn more
About the Artwork
The plaza known as the Piazza San Marco in Venice was as popular among tourists in the 1700s as it is today, and the painter Francesco Guardi provided the wealthiest of these visitors with both painted and drawn images of it. The Cleveland drawing is one of a number by Guardi that depict the same view, showing the facade of the Basilica of San Marco at the far end, the campanile (bell tower), and the Procuratie Nuove, the building seen in perspective at the right. This drawing was likely executed in Guardi’s studio, perhaps from a model made on-site using a camera obscura to capture the wide-angle viewpoint of the square. Traces of black chalk indicate where Guardi carefully worked out the arrangement and perspective of the buildings before delineating them with staccato strokes of his pen, imparting freshness and a sketchlike immediacy to his composition. His painterly handling of brown wash bathes the square in dramatic shadow. The square is populated by stock figures who take leisurely strolls under the late afternoon sun; yet the protagonist of the painting could be said to be Venice itself—the city known as La Serenissima (the Most Serene).
Inscriptions
VERSO, center, in graphite: 588 2 [underlined, upside down] ; lower left, in red chalk: [5 ?]7 [sideways]
Provenance
?-?: Private collector, Budapest. 1911: (Sale at Hôtel Drouot, Paris, June 11, 1911, cat. no. 107.) ?-?: (M. Knoedler & Co., London.) ?-1951: (Cesar M. De Hauke [1900-1965], Paris, sold to The Cleveland Museum of Art, March 1951.) 1951-: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH.
Exhibition history
Views of Venice. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (March 11-April 26, 1953). Department of Prints and Drawings Opening Exhibition. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (March 3, 1958-October 11, 1959). Italian and French Drawings. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (October 13, 1959-February 2, 1960). Drawings. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (January 11-September 10, 1963). Drawings: France, Italy, Netherlands. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (January 1-March 24, 1965). Mostra dei Guardi. Palazzo Grassi spa, 30124 Venice, Italy (organizer) (June 5-October 10, 1965). Venice as City and Theater. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 27-April 21, 1985). Master Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (August 27-October 17, 2000); The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, NY (May 23-August 19, 2001); Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Houston, TX (October 14, 2001-January 6, 2002). The Persistence of Geometry: Form, Content and Culture in the Collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland (MOCA), Cleveland, OH (June 9-August 20, 2006).
Quick Overview
- Artist
- Francesco Guardi (Italian, 1712–1793)
- Date
- 1780s
- Medium
- pen and brown ink, brush and brown wash, with brush and gray wash (possibly chalk) and traces of black chalk, framing lines in brown and black ink
- Dimensions
- Sheet: 31.3 x 46.5 cm (12 5/16 x 18 5/16 in.)
- Type
- Drawing
- Classification
- Drawing
- Department
- Drawings
- Credit line
- John L. Severance Fund
- Accession no.
- 1951.83
More by Francesco Guardi in museum collections
Data retrieved from the Cleveland Museum of Art on October 8, 2026. The museum may have updated its record since.
Open-access museum record · AT-00010987
Powered by Art Trackers