Sir John Lavery R.A., R.S.A., R.H.A.

(Irish, 1856-1941)

The Grand Canal, Venice 14 x 23 cm. (5 1/2 x 9 in.)

Footnotes

Provenance
With Robertson & Bruce Ltd. Dundee
Private Collection, U.K.

Exhibited
London, Leicester Galleries, Cabinet Pictures by John Lavery, 1904, no.40 (as The Grand Canal, Venice)

From 1897 John Lavery exhibited regularly at the Venice Biennale, taking centre stage at its ninth exhibition in 1910 with a retrospective of fifty-three works. Although he had acted as a juror in 1899 and was awarded its gold medal in 1903, only three visits to the city are recorded – in 1892, 1910 and 1912 (Kenneth McConkey, John Lavery, A Painter and his World, 2010, Atelier Books, pp.89, 105 & 107; see also Sophie Bowness and Clive Philpot eds, Britain at the Venice Biennale, 1895-1995, 1995, The British Council).

It seems likely therefore that the present oil sketch, a rare and significant rediscovery, was painted on the first of these, when in the late summer of 1892, the artist, accompanied by fellow Glasgow Boys, James Guthrie and Alexander Roche, made an extensive tour of European galleries. By the time they reached Italy, Guthrie had returned to Scotland, while Lavery and Roche stayed a few days in Venice before travelling south to Anticoli Corrado, where Roche had a girlfriend. Lavery enjoyed Roche's company, but referred to him as 'Baedeker in excelsis' when they reached La Serenissima – adding that 'there wasn't a stone in Venice he hadn't something to tell me about' (Reminiscences in unpublished diary, 1924, Private Collection).

The style, scale and content of the present picture suggests that it should sit alongside Venice: St Marks, formerly thought to be the only extant work surviving from Lavery's brief 1892 visit (since the present work was exhibited in 1904, we can immediately discount the 1910 visit and the Lido holiday of 1912. Although some uncertainty surrounds the plotting of Lavery's travels in 1899 and 1903, it seems most likely that the present work should be ascribed to 1892). Both paintings represented the city in Lavery's solo exhibition in 1904 (Kenneth McConkey, Lavery, On Location, 2023, exhibition catalogue, National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin, Ulster Museum, Belfast & National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh, p.128, no.54).

As in the St Marks picture, Lavery focuses on the immediate foreground, excluding the sky and while the pavement provided stability for the former, his swift Grand Canal study can only have been painted from a gently swaying gondola. Gondolas had of course already featured in his work – specifically that imported for the Glasgow International Exhibition in 1888 (Op.Cit., p.80, no.24). But here was a more immediately spontaneous impression, vividly realized as traffic in the city's principal artery flowed past.

We are grateful to Professor Kenneth McConkey for compiling this catalogue entry.