Watermark: Triple crescents, on right side of sheet. Watermark, beta radiograph. three crescents, moon. 108784wm1_1947_2_rt_WM_beta.jpg
Watermark: Triple crescents over MEZANA on left side of sheet. Watermark, beta radiograph. three crescents, moon, Mezana. 108784wm2_1947_2_lft_WM_beta.jpg
Study for the painting in the Alessandro Brass Collection, Venice.
In this drawing the richly decorated state barge (bucintoro) progresses from the Riva degli Schiavoni to San Niccolò al Lido, accompanied by a fotilla of gondolas and other vessels. The doge made the journey each year on Ascension Day, pausing to cast a ring into the lagoon to symbolize Venice's marriage to the Adriatic. A late work, the drawing is a compositional study for a painting of the early 1780s. --Exhibition Label, from "Tiepolo, Guardi, and Their World: Eighteenth-Century Venetian Drawings"
On verso as part of print, "Sacrum Convivium"; at lower left, "Cav. Orsolini fec. Ven".
Dubois, former owner.
David-Weill, David, 1871-1952, former owner.
Zinser, Richard H., former owner.
Stampfle, Felice, and Jacob Bean. Drawings from New York collections. III: The eighteenth century in Italy. New York : Metropolitan Museum of Art : Pierpont Morgan Library, 1971, no. 195, repr.