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Updated: June 24, 2025
This collection of great men makes no effort to be complete, but it is rather surprising not to find such very loyal sons of Venice as Canaletto, Guardi and Longhi among the artists, and Giorgione is of course a grievous omission.
Where are the others? have they broken their necks? No! there they come, in the rear. They were a little thrown out at the last leap, but two are making ground upon the green usurper; and now they are once more all in full sight and full speed, while the Roman welkin rings to strange sounds! "Guardi il Verde;" "Per me guadagna il Giallo." "I'll take you two to one on the Maid of the Mill." "Done."
Then some stairs and a set of eighteenth-century rooms with curiously real carnival costumes in them, like Longhi's pictures come to life, and a painting or two by Guardi, including what purports to be his own portrait. Then a Chinese room, and a Goldoni room with first editions of the little man's plays, his portrait, and other relics.
Longhi is here, with his little society scenes; Tiepolo, with some masterly swaggering designs; Giambettino Cignaroli, whom I mention only because his "Death of Rachel" is on Sundays the most popular picture in the whole gallery; and Canaletto and Guardi, with Venetian canals and palaces and churches.
The painting of the eighteenth century is brilliant illustration still touched with art. For instance, in Watteau, Canaletto, Crome, Cotman, and Guardi there is some art, some brilliance, and a great deal of charming illustration. In Tiepolo there is hardly anything but brilliance; only when one sees his work beside that of Mr. Sargent does one realise the presence of other qualities.
I would suggest Hamburg to artists following in the track of Canaletto, Guardi, or Joyant; they will find, at every step, themes as picturesque as and more new than those which they go to Venice in search of.
Hence it is always a scene of gay and sparkling movement and always more like a Guardi than any other spot in Venice.
We pass, to reach it, down the Via Felice, across the Piazza Barberini, and up the steepest hill in Rome, by the Via Quatro Fontani; from its brow, we look momentarily down on the Viminal side, to Santa Maria Maggiore, with all the other objects that present themselves to view from this spot; and presently find ourselves at the end of that long street of convents and churches, which issues at its other extremity in the Porta Pia, forming a straight line of nearly a mile and a half in length; and here we are in that well-known Piazza, which is bounded on one side by the Papal Palace and its gardens; on the opposite by the Colonna and its ruin-scattered grounds; backed by the palaces Ruspigliosi and Guardi Nobile, and an open view of the Campagna in front.
M. Rosa came and made me read the act which he had prepared; he had not had time to have it engrossed by the notary, but he undertook to have it ready the next day. I left Madame Orio to take supper with my brother Francois, who resided with a painter called Guardi; he was, like me, much oppressed by the tyranny of Grimani, and I promised to deliver him.
For Tiepolo at his best the Labia Palace must be visited, and Longhi is more numerously represented at the Museo Civico than here. Both Canaletto and Guardi can be better studied in London, at the National Gallery and the Wallace Collection. There are indeed no works by either man to compare with the best of ours.
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