Gorringe's Autumn Fine Art & Antiques Sale

Lot 378
Giovanni Antonio Canal called Canaletto (1697-1798)
Venice, The Dogana from the Bacino di San Marco
oil on canvas
inscribed on the reverse: Auguste Chatelain
11 x 8.5in.
£100,000 - 150,000
Auguste Châtelain (b. Neuchâtel 1838, d. St-Blaise 1923), who owned this painting, was a doctor,
Rector of the University of Neuchâtel and passionate historian who founded the Société d’histoire et
d’archéologie de Neuchâtel. Another painting by Canaletto depicting The Lock at Dolo (oil on canvas,
31 x 45cm.: with Robilant & Voena) was also formerly in the collection of Auguste Châtelain, inscribed in
the same way with his name on the relining canvas, before being recorded with Alfred Beurdeley (1847-
1919), Paris.
W.G. Constable (see Literature) suggests the painting may be a fragment of a once large composition.
The composition, however, functions very well as it is and in the absence of technical evidence to
demonstrate it may have been reduced in size, there is no reason to assume it was not conceived in its
current format.
Provenance: Auguste Châtelain; With Arthur Tooth and Sons Ltd.
Literature: W.G. Constable, revised by J.G. Links, Canaletto, Oxford 1989, vol I, plate 36, no.158; vol.II,
no.158, with comment, ‘probably once formed part of larger picture’.
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