Bernardo Bellotto

Bio

The only eighteenth century biography of Bellotto was included by Pietro Guarienti in the 1753 Venetian edition of his Abecadario Pittorico. Describing Bellotto’s travels, including his visit to Rome on the advice of his uncle, Canaletto. Guarienti notes ‘passò a Verona, Brescia e Milano, dove con molta sua lode le più conspicue prospettive di quei paesi in tele ritrasse.’[1] Guarienti then goes on to describe the artist’s activities in Venice and Dresden, where Bellotto was at the time but, alas, passes over discussion of his output while working in Venice. Although the works of his German and Polish periods are well-known, his output during the twelve years from the time he entered his uncle’s studio until his departure from Italy has been less comprehensively documented. The great Bellotto scholar, Stefan Kozakiewicz, identifies only seven paintings and twenty-one drawings of specific Venetian views and a handful of Capricii incorporating Venetian elements, but these must be considered a small proportion of his total Venetian output. With the aid of comparisons with known paintings from the ‘Italian’ period it has been possible for recent scholars to augment his known oeuvre with a significant group of autograph views

The son of Fiorenza Canale, elder sister of Antonio Canale, ‘Canaletto’, and Lorenzo Bellotto, of whom little is known (and after whom he named his own son), Bernardo entered his uncle’s studio as an assistant around 1735. Three years later he was received into the Venetian Fraglia and his independent career commenced with commissions for vedute from Canaletto’s great patron, the English Consul Smith, and Count Matthias von der Schulenburg. Between 1741 and 1742 he left for Rome,[2] travelling via Florence (from where six views have been identified[3]) and Lucca[4] where he spent a few months before returning once more to Venice. Eighteen months later, in 1744, he departed for Lombardy and was based in Milan for perhaps as long as two years, making trips to Gazzada and Vaprio d’Adda. During this period we may ascribe a number of views of Turin and Verona. In 1747 he left Italy permanently and embarked on a spectacularly successful career as a view painter at the Courts of the Electors of Bavaria in Munich and Saxony in Dresden, before leaving to work for the King of Poland, where he executed some of his greatest works. His meticulous images of Central European cities were extensively used in their post-War reconstruction. Bellotto’s use of the name Canaletto (which is how he is still generally known in Poland) was no doubt partly intended to open the doors of patrons who knew of his uncle’s renown.

NOTES

[1] Pietro Guarienti, Abecedario Pittorico del M.R.P.Pellegrino Antonio Orlandi Bolognese […], Venice, 1753, p.101.

[2] Stefan Kozakiewicz, Bernardo Bellotto, 2 Vols, 1972, Vol II, pp. 48-59, nos. 64-81, identifying ten paintings and eight drawings.

[3] Kozakiewicz, Op. cit., Vol II, pp. 38-44, nos. 52-7.

[4] Kozakiewicz, Op. cit., Vol II, pp. 45-48, nos. 58-61, identifies four views of Lucca.