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Lot description
Giovanni Antonio Guardi was the son of Domenico, also a painter, and the older brother of Niccolò and Francesco Guardi, the famous vedutists. After losing his father at an early age, Domenico inherited the workshop and trained his two younger brothers. This apprenticeship explains the problems encountered in attributing works by the brothers - the present painting was also traditionally attributed to Francesco, but returned to Gianantonio by Federico Zeri in 1965. Egidio Martini, on the other hand, preferred the attribution to Francesco and wrote as late as 1982: "With the same spontaneity and ease with which Francesco devoted himself to the veduta and the capriccio, he also painted figural compositions until the last years of his life, some of which were of his own invention or inspired by other masters. Although this was not his true genre, in his best moments he left us some small masterpieces, such as the sensitive Annunciation (here)." Early in his career, Gianantonio was engaged by Count Giovannelli and later by Marshal Schulenburg, for whom he worked as copyist from 1730 to 1745. Many of the artist's early works are copies or free interpretations of works in the Venetian tradition: the present canvas does indeed show clear references to Titian's later Annunciation in San Salvatore, especially in the two figures.