Carlo Grubacs
Venice, 1802 – Venice, after 1870
View of Riva degli Schiavoni and the Doge’s Palace in Venice
146 x 210 mm – 5 3/4 x 8 1/4 in.
Gouache on paper.
Carlo Grubacs
Venice, 1802 – Venice, after 1870
View of the interior courtyard of the Doge’s Palace in Venice
146 x 210 mm – 5 3/4 x 8 1/4 in.
Gouache on paper.
Born in Venice in 1802, Carlo Grubacs began his artistic training very early in 1818, when he was admitted to the painting school conducted by Teodoro Matteini at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Venice. He quickly moved towards the creation of perspective views on the tracks of the great Venetian masters of the 18th century, such as Canaletto and Guardi. He is active at a time when artists like Vincenzo Chilone, Giuseppe Borsato, Giacomo Guardi and Giuseppe Bernardino Bison, provide tourists making their Grand Tour with their oils, gouaches and vedutist drawings, in memory of their trip.
Son of a captain by navy named Giovanni Battista, originally from Perasto at Montenegro, Carlo is the first of his family to devote himself fully to painting, thus starting a family tradition which was pursued by his son Giovanni and later by his grandson Marco, active until the 20th century.
Carlo Grubacs participated in the Exhibition of the Accademia in Venice in 1847 and, from 1854, he was present at this event every year. Its oils and gouaches are today dispersed in private collections and some museums including the Museo Civico de Bassano del Grappa which has four large paintings of the master[ 1 ]. His views of Venice are often based on models by Francesco Guardi and Canaletto or which he places in changing climatic conditions, representing the city under the sun, rain or even snow.
These gouaches, produced with great precision and remarkable freshness, were greatly appreciated by foreign tourists who undertook the Grand Tour in the 19th century, considering them as « postcards of the time ». Like his 18th century predecessors, Carlo Grubacs managed to capture the moment of his 19th century Venice by animating his landscapes as fashionable characters of the time.
He used to take the same vedute that he performed on different formats. So we can compare our gouache to the View of Riva degli Schiavoni and the Doge’s Palace another in a smaller format ( fig. 1, 124 x 172 mm )[ 2 ] in which we find the same line of flight directed to the left leaving in the shade the facade of the Palais des Doges. Some differences are notable, however, in the arrangement of the silhouettes walking on the quay and the clear sky suggesting a sunnier afternoon.
Our second gouache, remarkably executed, details with precision and meticulous the interior courtyard of the Palais des Doges. On the right, the perfectly represented Renaissance wing facade appears in all its beauty with its elegant loggias and innumerable sculptures. Basically, the domes of the Basilica of Saint Mark overhang the facade of the Clock and the Arc Foscari, a triumphant arc dedicated to the doge Francesco Foscari. To the right of it rises the imposing staircase of Giants dominated by the statues of Mars and Neptune. Some characters, scattered in this cortile, come to animate this representation of perfect authenticity, faithful testimony of what was in the 19th century and what is still today, the interior courtyard of the Doge’s Palace.
Condition report: good general condition.
[ 1 ] F. Magani, La Venezia dei Grubacs, exhibition catalog, Treviso 2017, p. 55-56.
[ 2 ] Carlo e Giovanni Grubacs vedutisti veneziani del XIX secolo, exhibition catalog from November 4 to December 4, 1999, Antichità Caiati, Milan, n ° 7, p. 40-43, ill. p. 41.
