Enfilade

With his younger brother Pietro the focal point of an exhibition in Venice, Bernardo Belotto, the pupil and nephew of the more famous ‘Canaletto’ will be the subject of a major show in Munich next fall:

Canaletto, Bernardo Bellotto Paints Europe / Bernardo Bellotto Malt Europa
Alte Pinakothek, Munich, 17 October 2014 — 19 January 2015

Bernardo Bellotto, View of Munich from the East, 1761
© Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Munich

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With around 80 loans from public and private collections in Europe and the USA, this exhibition will be the first comprehensive show of Bellotto’s work in Germany for almost 50 years and will provide a unique opportunity to accompany the Venetian vedute painter on his journey through 18th-century Europe.

Bernardo Bellotto, known as Canaletto, worked for several months in Munich in 1761 and painted a broad panorama of the city and two views of Nymphenburg Palace for Maximilian III, Elector of Bavaria. Thanks to a comprehensive restoration programme, the three large-format paintings will regain their original lustre over the next few months. These are among the artist’s major works and are also unique historical documents.

The exhibition shows Bellotto’s pictures of Munich for the first time within the context of exemplary paintings and drawings from all his creative phases. Views of royal cities, palaces and villas will form the focus of attention and bring to life the places where Bellotto worked — from Venice and Rome to Dresden, Vienna and Warsaw. In addition, groups of works, such as landscapes and the artist’s fanciful capricci that have so far been paid less attention, will also form thematic highlights in the projected exhibition.

From Ca’ Rezzonico:

Archives of Landscape Painting | Pietro Bellotti: Another Canaletto
Ca’ Rezzonico, Museum of 18th-Century Venice, 7 December 2013 — 28 April 2014

Curated by Charles Beddington, Alberto Craievich, and Domenico Crivellari

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This year sees the start of a new and fascinating investigation at Ca’ Rezzonico, the symbol of 18th-century Venice, into landscape painting. This important genre developed during the 18th century in Venice, which provided an extraordinary source of inspiration for its exponents.

Among the leading figures of the genre, which is at the centre of a necessary re-evaluation, was Pietro Bellotti, Canaletto’s nephew and the younger brother of Bernardo Bellotti. Born in Venice in 1725, he developed a manner that was very different to that of the Canaletto ‘clan’ of which he was a part and despite exploiting the fame of his uncle (especially in France, where he lived for 50 years, calling himself ‘le Sieur Canalety’ or ‘Pietro Bellotti di Caneletty’). After moving to Toulouse with his family, he stayed for a brief apprenticeship in his brother’s workshop and then was active in Besançon, Nantes, Lille and Paris and, at least for a brief period, in England. Adopting an autonomous, personal style, he developed Canaletto’s inventions, producing numerous views of Europe’s most important cities, together with some architectural capriccios, some of which realised with the collaboration of other landscape painters.

The exhibition will offer a survey of the painter’s long working life, bringing together the few of his works conserved in public collections, such as at the Yale Center for British Art and the Mauritshuis in The Hague, and about 40 other pictures, including signed works in private European collections.