GUARDI, FRANCESCO
ARCHITECTURAL FANTASY WITH A RUINED GOTHIC ARCH
This picture forms a pair with the Pushkin Museum picture, Inv. No. 214.
Both pictures are of the small capriccio landscape type, characteristic for the work of Francesco Guardi. They depict not so much specific motifs drawn from townscapes as imagined scenes based on views of Venice. These works could easily be devised as pairs, or even whole series, even after they had been completed, at the very moment they were being sold.
Provenance: acquired by D.I.Shchukin via M.M.Savostin in St. Petersburg in 1909-1910; held in the Museum of Old Western Art in Moscow; in the Pushkin Museum since 1924.