Christie's Classic Week London in style, the Old Masters Evening Sale and Exceptional Sale achieved a combined total of £60.844.240 / $83.660.830 / €70.944.384a exceeding the minimum estimate by 116%, but above all a record for the great view painter, Canaletto.
Only twice at auction, in 1751 and 1993
Having appeared at auction only twice in its 300-year history, “The Return of the Bucintoro” is in an exceptional state of preservation, with the painted surface beautifully textured and the rich impasto of the figures intact. Inaccessible to scholars for much of its history, it has only recently emerged that the painting was on display at 10 Downing Street, where it is first documented in 1736, in the collection of Britain’s first Prime Minister, Sir Robert Walpole (1676–1745). This illustrious early XNUMXth-century provenance makes it – along with its Grand Canal pendant – the first documented work by the Venetian master to be displayed in an English home, predating King George III’s purchase of Consul Joseph Smith’s Canalettos by a quarter of a century. Hugely ambitious in both scale and conception, this highly evocative view is a testament to Canaletto’s prodigious talent and exacting technique, painted at the height of his career. It is his first known depiction of a subject to which he would return repeatedly, marking the starting point for Canaletto in painting such festivities.
At 10 Downing Street
The Return of the Bucintoro on Ascension Day was previously accompanied by a companion painting of the Grand Canal, looking north-east from the Palazzo Balbi to the Rialto Bridge. The two paintings remained together until the sale of the present work by Ader Tajan in 1993, where, appearing at auction for the first time in almost 250 years, it achieved a record price for an Old Master painting at a French auction. The exceptional pictorial quality and condition, together with the fine provenance of both paintings, meant that when the companion painting was sold in 2005 it achieved a world record price for the artist at auction, a title it still holds twenty years later. What was not known when the present painting last came up for sale is that the two paintings share a remarkable early history, having been owned by Britain's first Prime Minister, the great art patron and collector Sir Robert Walpole. Their presence in Walpole's collection was first noted by the British art historian and expert on Old Master paintings Sir Oliver Millar (1923-2007), who found them mentioned in the 1736 manuscript catalogue of the paintings at 10 Downing Street and in the 1751 auction when they were sold by Sir Robert's nephew, George Walpole; the manuscript copy of the sale is held in the National Art Library of the Victoria & Albert Museum.
What does the Bucintoro represent in Venice, symbol of the Serenissima
Falling on the fortieth day after Easter Sunday, the feast of the Ascension of Christ was the most spectacular of all Venetian festivals and was often commented on by visitors and travellers. It was exclusively on this day that the Bucintoro, the official galley of the Doge of Venice and symbol of the Serenissima. The model depicted here, the last one made at the Arsenale, was designed by Stefano Conti and decorated by the sculptor Antonio Corradini, recognizable by the lion – symbol of the city of Venice – on the bow and the figure of Justice. Accompanied by city officials, the Doge would head to the Lido on the Bucintoro and throw a ring into the water, a symbolic act representing the marriage of Venice to the sea. It was a ceremony that brought together the entire city and remained a key date in the Venetian calendar until the fall of the Republic in 1797. The Bacino di San Marco, where the scene is set, was the usual, and certainly the most exciting, point of arrival for visitors to Venice.
