Due marvellous masterpieces by the painter Canaletto (1697-1768), portraying two views of the Venetian lagoon, will be auctioned for the first time at Christie’s next 2nd December in London during the auction “Important Old Master and British Pictures”. The total estimate for the two canvases is between 7 and 11 million pounds, but sector experts are actually suggesting that the final figure could be double, given that Canaletto always receives applauses and success within the market, thanks to significant hammer prices.
Everyone should remember when on the 7th July 2005 at Sotheby’s London, one of his canvases portraying the Grand Canal, from a valuation of only 6-8 million pounds, reached 18.6 million pounds. It was an actual exploit. Or even another view of the famous Venetian canal, which at Christie’s New York in 2000, from an estimate of 2.5-3.5 million dollars, was sold for 6.6 million.
A great master who was highly esteemed by his contemporary and is still nowadays considered one of the great artists of history. Giovanni Antonio Canal, better known as c, was famous especially as a landscape painter. His paintings, besides uniting in the topographic representation architecture and nature, resulted from the careful atmospheric rendering, from the choice of precise conditions of light for each particular moment of the day and from an investigation carried out with scientifically objective criteria, in concomitance with the greatest moment of advance of the rationalistic ideas of the Enlightenment. Therefore, the artist insists on the mathematical value of perspective, using the optical camera in his works .
The canvases that will be auctioned at Christie’s in less than a month were commissioned together with other two, in 1738, by the aristocratic Thomas Brand, a friend of Horace Walpole, who personally met Canaletto during his journeys in Italy, later becoming a great collector of the Venetian artist’s paintings. We should mention that the other two works belonging to the series commissioned by Brand were sold privately in 1953, and one of these was sold at Christie’s London in December 2000 for 7.7 million.
Afterwards the two canvases that will be presented in London were bought by king George III and then passed over to the hands of an English aristocratic family that received them as a gift from the sovereign.
The two paintings both measure 47×78.2 centimetres and show the city of Venice from two different viewpoints. One painting is entitled “La Piazzetta di San Marco con la Libreria” (San Marco Square with the Bookshop) (estimate: £4,000,000 – 6,000,000), while the other “Il Canal Grande” (The Grand Canal), with views of Ca’ Corner and Ca’ Contarini degli Scrigni with the bell-tower of Santa Maria della Carità (estimate: £ 3,000,000 – 5,000,000).
The two masterpieces will be displayed from the 29th November to the 2nd December 2008 at the  King Street venue, and great results are expected despite a time of crisis like this one.
Richard Knight, International Director of the Old Master department and Paul Raison, Director and Head of the Old Master Pictures, support the extraordinary beauty of these works offered for the first time at auction. Indeed, they declared that these two Venetian views, Canaletto’s fifth essence, were painted while the painter was at the peak of his career. Marvellous works not only for their exceptional quality and condition, but also for their provenance. Canvases that “tempt” international collectors, always searching for rare works that can offer aesthetic quality, provenance and condition. Such characteristics, we can say, that belong to these canvases.