A Lady Holding a Fan and a Mask thumbnail 1
A Lady Holding a Fan and a Mask thumbnail 2
Image of Gallery in South Kensington
On display at V&A South Kensington
Europe 1600-1815, Room 2, The Wolfson Gallery

A Lady Holding a Fan and a Mask

Oil Painting
ca. 1700-ca. 1710 (painted)
Artist/Maker

This drawing is a sketch study showing a Venetian lady wearing a fashionable 18th century dress. This work was originally part of a dismembered album of fifty-three sketches that would ultimately form part of a Venetian veduta or prospect painting, a genre Carlevarijs is generally credited with establishing in the 18th century. His oeuvre probably influenced view paintings later made popular by Canaletto (1697-1768) and Francesco Guardi (1712-1793).


Object details

Categories
Object type
TitleA Lady Holding a Fan and a Mask (generic title)
Materials and techniques
Oil on canvas
Brief description
Oil painting, 'A Lady Holding a Fan and a Mask', Luca Carlevarijs, late 17th-early 18th century
Physical description
A lady wearing a black skirt, pink and white bodice with wide sleeves and a hooded mantle, holds a fan in her right hand and a mask in her left. This work is part of an album of fifty-three sketches by Carlevarijs which includes figures and objects he appears to have painted in the open air in preparation for insertion into formal compositions.
Dimensions
  • Estimate height: 18cm
  • Estimate width: 7cm
Dimensions taken from Catalogue of Foreign Paintings, I. Before 1800, C.M. Kauffmann, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 1973
Style
Gallery label
Studies of a Venetian Woman About 1700–10 These sketches show a woman holding a fan and mask in a variety of poses. In some she gestures with her fan, possibly to communicate with her admirers or companions. Carlevarijs used rapidly painted oil sketches like this to develop the figures in his large-scale views of Venice. He depicted men and women of all classes and in a range of different activities. Italy (Venice) By Luca Carlevarijs Oil on canvas Purchased with funds from the Captain H.B. Murray Bequest Museum nos. P.74, 76 to 78-1938(09/12/2015)
Credit line
Purchased from the funds of Captain H. B. Murray's bequest.
Object history
Purchased, 1938
Historical context
This is one of Carlevarijs' studies known as ‘macchiette’, originally part of an album of fifty-three sketches which includes figures Carlevarijs appears to have painted in open air. Carlevarijs first drew the figures on paper, copying them from people he saw in the streets and then transformed them into lively oil sketches, such as this one, which represent a crucial part of his artistic process.

Here a lady faces out, holding a closed fan up to her right cheek and a mask in her left hand. Fans and masks were usually as a form of secret language which was of great help in carrying out love affairs without knowledge of the lady's chaperone.

The figure wears a Mantua dress, an open robe that was fitted to the body and fell in stylised drapery at the back from the waist, fashionable in the opening decades of the 18th century. Beneath this she wears a stomacher of yellow embroidered in red and green with floral motifs. The form of the scarf over her head, which was customarily worn in the outdoors, suggests that the lady is wearing a high commode.

Studies such as these would ultimately form part of a Venetian veduta or prospect painting, which is a genre Carlevarijs is generally credited with establishing in the 18th century. This figure appears for example at the lower right of Piazza San Marco, Venice (New York, Metropolitan Museum), The Piazza San Marco (Kiplin Hall), and The Reception of Ambassador Charles Montagu, 4th Earl of Machester, at the Doge's Palace, 22 September 1707. In this final painting P.76-1938 can be seen with a number of figures which occur in the V&A oil studies, including a man in a cloak (inventory number P.41-1938).

Carlevarijs' sketches reveal a particular attention to costume, highlighting Venetian style of dress which was highly regarded in fashionable circles throughout Europe from the 16th through the 18th centuries. During the 18th century Venice became renowned for its carnival season and many figures in the view paintings by Carlevarijs can be seen in with accessories or costume, such as the men's domino, which was worn during these festivities.

The figures and objects appear frequently and virtually without variations in his paintings between 1707 and 1726 and are closely related to his etchings of 1703 in Le fabriche e vedute di Venetia. Composed of 104 views of Venice, the etchings formed the most complete survey of the fabric of the city ever produced and served as a model for Venetian view painters throughout the 18th century.

Carlevarijs' sketches also demonstrate his great influence on Canaletto, whose figures and their arrangement often show a marked debt to the older Master such as in Venice: The Feast Day of Saint Roch, ca. 1735 (National Gallery, London, NG937).
Subjects depicted
Summary
This drawing is a sketch study showing a Venetian lady wearing a fashionable 18th century dress. This work was originally part of a dismembered album of fifty-three sketches that would ultimately form part of a Venetian veduta or prospect painting, a genre Carlevarijs is generally credited with establishing in the 18th century. His oeuvre probably influenced view paintings later made popular by Canaletto (1697-1768) and Francesco Guardi (1712-1793).
Bibliographic references
  • Kauffmann, C.M., Catalogue of Foreign Paintings, I. Before 1800, London: Victoria and Albert Museum, 1973, p. 56-63, cat. no. 60 (P.26-1938 - P.78-1938)
  • John Pope-Hennessy, 'A Group of Studies by Luca Carlevarijs', The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs, Vol. 73, No. 426 (Sep., 1938), pp. 126-131.
  • Anon., 'Early Venetian Costume Studies' in Listener,22 September 1938, p. 613.
  • F. Mauroner, Luca Carlevarijs,2nd ed., 1945, p. 24, figs. 32 (P.57), 33 (P.55), 34 (P.69)
  • M. Levey, Painting in XVIII century Venice, 1959, p. 79.
  • W. G. Constable, Canaletto,i, 1962, pp. 70, 73 f., pl. 9 a (P.69) and b (P.55)
  • A. Rizzi, Disegni, incisioni e bozzetti del Carlevarijs, Exh. Cat. Udine, 1964, pp. 53-7, figs. 113-20.
  • The Glory of Venice : art in the eighteenth century. Jane Martineau and Andrew Robison (eds.), Exhibition held at the Royal Academy of Arts, London, September 15 - December 14, 1994 and at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., January 29 - April 23, 1995. pp. 93-97, 443-444, no. 21.
  • Life in XVIII century Venice, Iveagh Bequest, Kenwood, 1966.
  • A. Rizzi, Luca Carlevarijs,1967, p. 97 f., figs. 1-53 (Bozzetti).
  • I. Reale and D. Succi, Luca Carlevarijs e la veduta veneziana del Settecento Exh. Cat., Milan, 1994.
  • Venice, 1700-1800: an exhibition of Venice and the eighteenth century (The Detroit Institute of Arts [and] John Herron Art Museum), 1952, pp. 9-12, 23-26.
  • Luca Carlevarijs, Le fabriche e vedute di Venetia Exh. Cat., Venice, 1995-1996.
  • C. Beddington, Luca Carlevarijs : views of Venice Exh. Cat. (San Diego, Calif.: Timken Museum of Art, c. 2001), p. 19, fig. 17.
  • Victoria and Albert Museum, Department of Engraving, Illustration and Design and Department of Paintings, Accessions 1938, London: Board of Education, 1939.
Collection
Accession number
P.76-1938

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Record createdFebruary 12, 2007
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