The initiative “Archives of Landscape Paintings” devoted to the lesser-known protagonists and to some complex aspects of one of the best-loved genres of the 18th-century painting opens at Ca’ Rezzonico, the symbol of the 18th-century Venice.

The first meeting, from December 7, 2013 to April 28, 2014, sees Bernardo Bellotto’s brother and Canaletto’s nephew Pietro Bellotti as the protagonist; he worked in France during the second half of the 18th century and this is the first time a monographic exhibition has been devoted to him.

Considered as a secondary landscape painter for a long time, this artist was instead given by latest studies an important and unexpected role in the 18thcentury Venetian art. Moreover, his family connections with Bellotto and Canaletto would be enough to explain the interest towards him.

The exhibition, curated by Charles Beddington, Alberto Craievich and Domenico Crivellari, brings together for the first time forty-three paintings coming from European and American private collections, retracing Bellotti’s artistic path by providing documentary evidence of his extensive figurative repertory.

The few works signed by the painter and the extraordinary group of seventeen canvases with views of the main European cities, some of which are signed on the back, whose collection path has been documented since the 18th century, will be also part of the exhibition, organized in the magnificent rooms on the first floor of Ca’ Rezzonico - Museum of the 18th-century Venice.

The painter, thanks to his personal and independent style, developed Canaletto’s inventions increasing the traditional Venetian repertory with many views of the most important European cities – as well as some architectural capricci – and revealing a much more complex personality than expected in the past, through the works today attributed to him.

A complete and well-structured focalization of his production – coming to light thanks to this exhibition – allows appreciating his individuality and the original artistic flair, giving him the role of petit maître next to already-known artists such as Antonio Joli, Michele Mariesci or Francesco Tironi.

A catalogue has been issued for this exhibition, published by Scripta (Verona, 2013) and with articles by Charles Beddington, Alberto Craievich, Domenico Crivellari and Carlo Montanaro.

Pietro Bellotti is the latest name of a charming and ‘complicated’ family dynasty, in which everyone is a painter, and specialised in landscape paintings too.

During the years of Pietro’s youth, besides his brother, also his uncle and the doyen Bernardo Canal were working in Venice, the latter being active in the city until his death, in 1744. Within this context, it was inevitable that he would devote himself to painting right from the start.

We know little about his biography, though what we know is of great interest. He was born in Venice in 1725; at the age of sixteen he is registered as an apprentice in his brother’s workshop, who is only three years older than him and at his same age had already had his name in the lists of the ‘Fraglia dei pittori’ (the painters’ guild).

The notary deed which brought to his recent rediscovery committed his elder brother to teach him his art. However, this is not just a formality. In return, Pietro agreed to pay Bernardo the considerable sum of 120 ducats to be educated in a genre that foreign visitors appreciate.

Their relationship however is not bound to last. Less than a year later, the contract is terminated and the painter - still very young - leaves the house where his brother and his mother live.

We do not know the reasons for this split, whether it was due to his difficult relations with his brother or to a simple desire for independence, a feeling that he shared with his brother Bernardo, who was himself unsettled in his uncle’s workshop.

Pietro Bellotti is in Genoa in 1746, where he meets his wife-to-be; the two of them then move to Toulouse.

Throughout the second half of the century he is documented to be in France.

Toulouse is the city where he chooses to settle his family, and becomes the heart of his activities, but he is also active in Nantes (1755 and 1768), in Besançon (1761), then in Lille (1778-1779), and of course in Paris in many occasions - first in 1754-1755 - where we can recognise him as that “Sieur Canalety Peintre V enitien” mentioned in an advertisement in 1755.

In the 1760s and ’70s he is in England. Finally, Jean-Paul Lucas, a contemporary of his, mentions him in 1805 as having “recently died in France”.

The details of this biography, here reconstructed for the first time, tell of a wandering and adventurous life and shady associations, in a context recalling adventurers such as Cagliostro and Casanova.

The name ‘Canaletto’ is used by him too, for obvious promotional reasons, even if with less continuity than his brother Bernardo.

In addition to the almost fraudulent ad appeared in Paris, the painter’s signature reads, in a few known cases, “Bellotti dit Canaletti”, always trying to draw for him at least some of the fame his uncle enjoyed.

Ca’ Rezzonico - Museo del Settecento Veneziano
Dorsoduro 3136
Venice 30123 Italy
Ph. 848082000 (from Italy)
Ph. +39 041 42730892 (from abroad)
info@fmcvenezia.it
carezzonico.visitmuve.it

Opening hours
Until March 31st from 10 am to 5 pm (ticket office 10 am – 4 pm)
From April 1st 10am – 6 pm (ticket office 10 am – 5 pm)
Closed on Tuesdays, December 25th, January 1st

Related images

  1. Pietro Bellotti, Dresda: il mercato nuovo dallo Jüdenhof, 60,5 x 88 cm, Londra, Rafael Valls Ltd.
  2. Pietro Bellotti, Il Molo verso ovest con il Palazzo Ducale, cm 38 x 48,5, Londra, collezione privata
  3. Pietro Bellotti, Dresda: il ponte di Augusto dalla riva destra dell'Elba, 61 x 88 cm, Londra, Rafael Valls Ltd.
  4. Pietro Bellotti, Capriccio architettonico, 49 x 65,4 cm, Londra, collezione privata
  5. Pietro Bellotti, Veduta di piazza San Marco verso est, cm 64,3 x 81, Gloucestershire (Gran Bretagna), collezione privata
  6. Pietro Bellotti, Capriccio architettonico, 49 x 65,4 cm, Londra, collezione privata