paintings of la giudecca

The Giudecca island inspired a number of artists, especially in the past. Here is a little selection of the most famous paintings of la Giudecca.

Canaletto, maybe the best known Venetian painter (b. 1697, Venezia, d. 1768, Venezia) in 1725 met two British residents, the art impresario Owen McSwiney and the merchant Joseph Smith. McSwiney invited him to participate in a project to furnish English houses with large, imaginary landscape paintings, and also ordered a number of small topographical paintings on copper, likewise for the English market. McSwiney, however, was soon supplanted as Canaletto's 'manager' by Joseph Smith. Besides small paintings for the market, Smith commissioned a series of six large canvases from the master showing views of Piazza San Marco and its surroundings intended for his own house, followed by a number of views of the Grand Canal. Canaletto depicts here the Punta della Dogana: the Chiesa del Redentore ca be clearly seen in the background.


Canaletto "La Punta della Dogana"(Custom Point)
1726-28, Oil on canvas, 46 x 62,5 cm
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Johan Richter, swedish painter, (b. 1665, Tukholma, d. 1745, Venezia) was active in Venice by at least 1717. He painted Venetian scenes of the area around St Mark's, like Carlevaris who can be considered to be his master, however, he was more original in his paintings of the lagoon proposing views unprecedented in Venetian painting.

Johan Richter, "View of the Giudecca Canal"
1730s, Oil on canvas, 60 x 80 cm Private collection


(detail, see above)

• Pietro Longhi (Venice 1702-1783)
  "Banquet in the House of Nani in the Giudecca Quarter, Venice"
  The Venetian painter Pietro Longhi (whose real surname was Pietro Falca), the son of a goldsmith, had been working for years as painter of the popular fresco decorations, until at the age of 40 he devoted himself to portraying everyday subjects, real places and people (...)
• John Mallord William Turner (1775-1851).
  Considered one of Britain’s finest landscape painters, JMW Turner was fascinated by Venice and the Giudecca. In June 2006 the Venice canal scene “Giudecca, La Donna della Salute and San Giorgio,” sold for US$35.8 million (28 million euros) in New York - an auction record for a work by a British artist. Source: http://homeboynet.wordpress.com/2006/07/16/ - though we would translate the painting's name as "Giudecca, La MADONNA della Salute and San Giorgio": in fact it refers to the Church of the Our Lady of Good Health, Madonna della Salute in Italian; Donna means woman. (...)