Francesco Guardi (Venice 1712-1793)

This is one of the largest and most impressive drawings by Guardi to appear on the market in recent memory. The setting possibly relates to Guardi’s ancestral home in the Val de Sole, the mountainous region near Trento. In 1778 Guardi returned to the region for the first time since his youth and the rural area seems to have infused his later works, such as the present lot. Morassi generally dates these types of compositions with their fluid wash of varying tonalities to late in Guardi’s career (Morassi, op. cit., 1975, p. 157). He relates the composition to a painting in the Musée de Picardie in Amiens (Morassi, op. cit., 1973, no. 1000), and notes another drawing of similar composition, formerly in the Crespi collection (Morassi, op. cit., 1975, no. 438). The painting has a squarer format (44 x 53 cm.), but the configuration of trees in the left side of the drawing is similar to that in the painting, as is the clearing in the foreground where most of the hunters and their prey are scattered.

This drawing also has a storied provenance, most recently coming from the collection of the horsee breeder John R. Gaines (1928-2005) who amassed one of the most impressive collections of works on paper in the U.S. during the second half of the 20th Century. Prior to that, the drawing was in the collection of John Goelet who donated much of his collection to Harvard, and who was the founder of the Clos de Val winery in Napa Valley, California.