Francesco Guardi (Venice 1712-1793)

Francesco Guardi became the most famous of a distinguished family of painters, due to his success as a vedutista, or view painter. He developed a style which, instead of aiming at a firm depiction of architectural structures as Canaletto's had, preferred to capture the effects of a vibrant atmosphere on buildings and water: his many beautiful drawings have an unmistakably tremulous and broken style. Towards the latter part of his life, he created very poetic imaginary compositions or capricci, which he seems to have produced to suit the taste of his compatriots - Venetian patrons evidently preferred them to the straightforwardly topographical views of Venice which appealed to the foreign tourists. These capricci are more purely imaginative than Canaletto's, and tend to repeat motifs such as ruined classical arches, Gothic ruins, outlying churches and dilapidated bridges often inhabited by peasants, fishermen, washerwomen and sometimes even elegantly dressed figures. It is clear from the number that have survived that these capricci, mostly small, had a considerable vogue; the best of them are indeed charming in conception and exquisitely painted.

The composition of this pair can be compared with the picture illustrated in Morassi (op. cit., fig. 756) that also represents an imaginary description of the quiet life in the countryside, at the feet of the Dolomites.