FRANCESCO GUARDI
1712-1793
19 A Theatrical Performance
Pen and brown ink, brown wash, and black chalk; H:
27.4 cm (ioI3/i6in.); H: 38.5 cm (15 Vain.)
89.00.5 1
MARKS AND INSCRIPTIONS! None.
PROVENANCE: Private collection, New York; art mar-
ket, London.
EXHIBITIONS: European Drawings, Hazlitt, Gooden and
Fox, Ltd., London, November-December 1988, no. 39.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: K. Pask, "Francesco Guardi and the
Conti del Nord: A New Drawing, "J. Paul Getty Museum
Journal 20 (1992) (forthcoming).
THIS DRAWING FIRST APPEARED IN 1988 IN AN EXHI-
bition in London (no. 39), where it was correctly linked
to another of similar subject and setting in the collection
of Mrs. H. Anda-Buhrle, Zurich. The latter was con-
nected in turn byj. By am Shaw to a drawing of a banquet
scene by Guardi in the Hermitage, Saint Petersburg (inv.
11840), that commemorates an event that occurred dur-
ing the visit of Grand Duke Paul Petrovitch of Russia and
his wife, Maria Fedorovna, to Venice between January 18
and 25, I782.^1 Several paintings and drawings resulted
from this visit, and it may well be, as has been suggested
by K. Pask, that the Getty sheet depicts the noble couple's
attendance at a commedia dell'arte performance on Jan-
uary 21. Byam Shaw dated the Biihrle drawing to "after
1780" on grounds of style and costume. This dating con-
forms to the proposal that it and the Museum's drawing
are tied to the week spent in Venice by the "Conti del
Nord," as the grand duke and duchess were called.i. J. Byam Shaw, The Drawings of Francesco Guardi (London,
1949), p. 69.58 ITALIAN SCHOOL • GUARDI