Splendour in Venice: From Canaletto to Guardi

Francesco Guardi, The Feast of the Ascension in the Piazza San Marco (detail), ca. 1775, Calouste Gulbenkian Museum, Lisbon.

After working together in 2009 on the exhibition devoted to the French painter Henri Fantin-Latour, the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum and the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza have joined forces once again to promote an encounter between the works of their respective collections, based on their characteristic affinities. This new exhibition project, which starts in Lisbon in autumn 2024 and continues in Madrid in early 2025, takes as its theme 18th-century Venetian painting, with both museums contributing with works from their collections that echo and complement one another.

Unmistakeable painters such as Canaletto, Guardi, Bellotto and Tiepolo, creators of some of the most brilliant compositions of their time, will be brought together with other artists selected for the exhibition. The display will focus on the feste (the celebrations held in La Serenissima), vedute (panoramic views of a specific location), and capricci(fantastical architectures dreamt up by local artists), all of which are naturally festive motifs.