Canaletto, 'Venice: The Feast Day of Saint Roch', about 1735

Venice: The Feast Day of Saint Roch

Canaletto

Room 33

About the work

Overview

A crowd watches as state dignitaries and foreign ambassadors emerge from the church of San Rocco on the right of this painting. They have just attended a mass in honour of Saint Roch as part of the saint’s feast day, which was held in Venice every year on 16 August to celebrate his role in bringing the plague of 1576 to an end. The doge (the elected head of the Venetian state) is dressed in a golden, ermine-lined ceremonial robe; other figures wear sumptuous draperies and white powdered wigs. Many of those gathered to watch the grand procession face away from us, giving us the impression that we are part of the crowd watching the festivities.

The Scuola Grande di San Rocco, which houses one of the city’s religious and charitable organisations, dominates this picture’s background. An exhibition of paintings – a tradition of feast day – hangs on the Scuola’s facade and the houses nearby, attracting the attention of passersby.

In-depth

Richly dressed state dignitaries and foreign ambassadors emerge from a church on the right side of this painting. A mass of people have gathered to watch the grand procession; most of them have their backs to us, giving the impression that we too are part of the crowd, stood just behind them. We are witnessing the feast day of Saint Roch, held every year on 16 August to celebrate his role in bringing the plague of 1576 to an end.

On this day it was customary for the doge of Venice to attend mass in the church of San Rocco, where the saint’s relics were revered. The men in the procession all carry nosegays, a sweet-scented bunch of flowers originally intended to mask unpleasant smells, as a memorial to the plague. Canaletto has used energetic brushwork and thick accents of paint to describe their hair and their ceremonial robes. The doge himself is dressed in a golden, ermine-lined ceremonial robe, a cap and rensa (a white linen head-cloth); we think this painting was made in around 1735, which means that he could be the newly elected Doge Alvise Pisani. To his left is the French ambassador, and to his right, a representative of the papal embassy, wearing a black cape with a hood (known as a mozzetta). In front of them are the scarlet-clad grand chancellor, two servants who carry an upholstered chair and a cushion, and three secretaries in purple garments. A canvas awning above the group provides shade, and its horizontal line creates an undulating rhythm across the lower composition that accentuates the movement of the procession.

Sunlight catches faces in the crowd and those in the procession at different angles. Canaletto developed a particular way of painting large numbers of faces – he used highlights on the forehead and cheeks to show how each head was angled in relation to the light, with dots for the eyes, chin and nose. Some figures have individual characteristics, like those at the head of the procession, the two men walking towards us on the far left or the man standing opposite a vendor with weighing scales, his face in full sunlight. Even those facing away from us have personality, expressed through pose and outfit. In the foreground, we see a beggar in a ragged brown cloak accompanied by a small boy who bends over, possibly thinking about picking a pocket. Nearby, two visitors from the Near East stand in white robes, alongside baskets of vegetables that have been temporarily abandoned as the procession passes.

This view reveals Canaletto’s inventiveness – he has greatly enlarged the square to accommodate the sizeable crowd and removed buildings from one side to give us a clear view of the scene. If we compare the scale of the men in the procession with that of onlookers standing in the two doorways behind, we can see how he has used the relative size of figures to give the painting a greater sense of spatial depth. The spectacular facade of the Scuola Grande di San Rocco, built to house one of Venice’s most important religious and charitable organisations, dominates the background. Canaletto’s brushstrokes mimic the materials that they represent in the Scuola’s stonework, coloured marble inlays and sculpted columns. Work started on the building’s construction in 1517 with the facade we see here, which was designed by the Italian architect Antonio Scarpagnino in 1527.

During the feast day the doge and his guests were shown the great works of Tintoretto inside the Scuola, which remain there today. An exhibition of paintings by old and contemporary masters was traditionally held outside the Scuola. Here, religious and historical subjects, portraits and view paintings are hung on the facade and on the houses to the left, attracting the attention of passersby. These paintings were lent by artists and collectors, some eager to find buyers. Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, Sebastiano Ricci and Bellotto displayed their own works on such occasions. We know that Canaletto exhibited a view of the Venetian church of Santi Giovanni e Paolo in 1725, which was bought by an ambassador who attended the procession. There have been attempts to identify the pictures displayed here: the canvas on the far right resembles a view of the Grand Canal by Canaletto and the painting to the left of the largest one looks like an altarpiece by Johann Liss.

Canaletto only painted the doge’s visit to San Rocco once, though he depicted other Venetian ceremonies numerous times, such as those in A Regatta on the Grand Canal and The Basin of San Marco on Ascension Day. We know very little about this painting’s early history apart from an intriguing reference to it in a sale catalogue of 1802 which states that it came ‘from the Vatican’, though this may be inaccurate.

Key facts

Details

Full title: Venice: The Feast Day of Saint Roch
Artist: Canaletto
Artist dates: 1697 - 1768
Date made: about 1735
Medium and support: oil on canvas
Dimensions: 147.7 × 199.4 cm
Acquisition credit: Wynn Ellis Bequest, 1876
Inventory number: NG937
Location: Room 33
Collection: Main Collection
Previous owners: Wynn Ellis
Frame: 18th-century French Frame

Provenance

In the Littlehales sale, London, 2 March 1804 (lot 37), bought by Joubert. In the B. Booth sale, London, 31 May 1809 (lot 99), bought by Thomas Johnes. It is mentioned as at Hafod in 1815. In the collection of Wynn Ellis by 1853 when lent to the British Institution (no. 173). It was exhibited at the Royal Academy, 1871 (no. 236), lent by Wynn Ellis. Wynn Ellis Bequest, 1876. Lent to the exhibition, Canaletto, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, 1964–5 (No. 23).

Additional information

Text extracted from the ‘Provenance’ section of the catalogue entry in Michael Levey, ‘National Gallery Catalogues: The Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Italian Schools’, London 1986; for further information, see the full catalogue entry.

Exhibition history

2013

The Pageant of Venice: Art and Music in the Golden Age of the Serenissima

Montreal Museum of Fine Arts

7 October 2013 - 19 January 2014

Portland Art Museum

12 February 2014 - 11 May 2014
2017

Eyewitness Views: Making History in the Capitals of Eighteenth-Century Europe

J. Paul Getty Museum (Los Angeles)

9 May 2017 - 30 July 2017

Minneapolis Institute of Art

10 September 2017 - 31 December 2017

The Cleveland Museum of Art

25 February 2018 - 20 May 2018
2022

Canaletto and Melissa McGill: Performance and Panorama

The Lightbox

16 July 2022 - 13 November 2022

Bibliography

1801

J. Britton and E.W. Brayley, The Beauties of England and Wales, 19 vols, London 1801
1894

B. Berenson, The Venetian Painters of the Renaissance, with an Index to Their Works, New York 1894
1910

E. Sack, Giambattista und Domenico Tiepolo: Ihr Leben und ihre Werke: Ein Beitrag zur Kunstgeschichte des achtzehnten Jahrhunderts, Hamburg 1910
1920

H.F. Finberg, 'Canaletto in England', The Walpole Society, IX, 1921, pp. 41-4
1921

W.G. Constable, 'Canaletto and Guardi', The Burlington Magazine, XXXIX/225, 1921, pp. 298-303
1948

M. Varret, 'La représentation des fêtes dans la peinture vénitienne du XVIIIe siècle', Musées de France, 8, 1948, pp. 226-8
1954

V. Moschini, Canaletto. Testo di Vittorio Moschini, Milan 1954
1954

F.J.B. Watson, Canaletto, revised edn, London 1954
1955

F.J.B. Watson, 'Venetian Paintings at the Royal Academy 1954-5', Arte veneta, 1955
1956

Levey, Michael, National Gallery Catalogues: The Eighteenth Century Italian Schools, London 1956
1958

F. Haskell and M. Levey, 'Art Exhibitions in 18th Century Venice', Arte veneta, XII, 1958, pp. 179-85
1971

M. Levey, The Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Italian Schools, London 1971
1975

L. Puppi, Tout l'oeuvre peint de Canaletto, Paris 1975
1976

W.G. Constable and J.G. Links, Canaletto: Giovanni Antonio Canal, 1697-1768, revised edn, Oxford 1976
1977

J.G. Links, Canaletto and His Patrons, London 1977
1980

L.M. Rossi, 'Collezionismo e mercato dei vedutisti nella Venezia del Settecento', Ricerche di storia dell'arte, XI, 1980, pp. 79-92
1982

J.G. Links, Canaletto, London 1982
1982

D. Bomford and A. Roy, 'Canaletto's "Venice: The Feastday of S. Roch"', National Gallery Technical Bulletin, VI, 1982, pp. 40-3
1983

M. Helston, Spanish and Later Italian Paintings, London 1983
1983

J. Mills and R. White, 'Analyses of Paint Media', National Gallery Technical Bulletin, VII, 1983, pp. 65-7
1985

A. Corboz, Canaletto: Una Venezia immaginaria, Milan 1985
1986

Levey, Michael, National Gallery Catalogues: The Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Italian Schools, London 1986
1987

T. Laurentius, 'Perspectief-vertekeningen bij landschaptekenaars', De Kroniek van het Rembrandthuis, XXXIX/1, 1987, pp. 2-20
1989

W.G. Constable and J.G. Links, Canaletto: Giovanni Antonio Canal, 1697-1768, 3rd edn, Oxford 1989
1990

B. Aikema and B. Bakker, Painters of Venice: The Story of the Venetian Veduta, (exh. cat. Rijksmuseum, 15 December 1990 - 10 March 1991), The Hague 1990
1993

G. Teseo, 'Ricerca storica e catalogazione: Tecniche costruttive e restauri della chiesa di San Rocco a Venezia', Bollettino d'arte, 80-81, 1993, pp. 121-54
1994

J.G. Links, Canaletto, revised edn, London 1994
1994

J. Martineau and A. Robinson, The Glory of Venice: Art in the Eighteenth Century (exh. cat. Royal Academy of Arts, 15 September - 14 December 1994; National Gallery of Art, Washington, 29 January - 23 April 1995), London 1994
1995

C. de Benedictis, Per la storia del collezionismo italiano, fonti e documenti, Florence 1995
1998

B.A. Kowalczyk, 'I Canaletto della National Gallery di Londra', Arte veneta, LIII, 1998, pp. 72-99
1998

D. Bomford and G. Finaldi, Venice through Canaletto's Eyes (exh. cat. The National Gallery, 15 July - 11 October 1998; York City Art Gallery, 24 October 1998 - 3 January 1999), London 1998
2001

C. Baker and T. Henry, The National Gallery: Complete Illustrated Catalogue, London 2001
2005

B.A. Kowalczyk, Canaletto: Il trionfo della veduta (exh. cat. Palazzo Giustiniani, 12 March - 19 June 2005), Rome 2005
2010

S. Tipton, 'Diplomatie und Zeremoniell in Botschafterbildern von Carlevarijs und Canaletto', Journal of the International Association of Research Institutes in the History of Art, 2010, pp. 1-197, www.riha-journal.org/articles/2010/tipton-diplomatie-und-zeremoniell

About this record

If you know more about this painting or have spotted an error, please contact us. Please note that exhibition histories are listed from 2009 onwards. Bibliographies may not be complete; more comprehensive information is available in the National Gallery Library.

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