GIUSEPPE ZOCCHI (1716-1767)

THE PORTA LATINA
Red chalk with pen & ink and wash
15 x 22 cm (Cut at corners)
 
PROVENANCE
From an album of drawings by Zocchi which were commissioned from the artist by Sir Horace Mann Bt. (1701-1786), British Envoy at Florence 1740 to 1786;
By descent to his nephew, Sir Horatio Mann, Bt.;
Given by Sir Horatio Mann c. 1812 to his grand-daughter, Sarah Anne Wheelwright;
Given by Sarah Anne Wheelwright in 1854 to her sister-in-law, Mrs. Anne Wheelwright, wife of the Rev. Charles Apthrop Wheelwright, Vicar of Tansor;
Given by Mrs. Anne Wheelwright to her daughter, Henrietta Pretyman Wheelwright, who died in infancy, in 1854;
Katharine Wheelwright, sister of Henrietta, who married James Renault Saunders, of Natal;
Given by Mrs. Saunders to her daughter Henrietta Wadd Natalie Saunders, who married Courtney Acutt, 1899;
Given by Mrs. Courtney Acutt to Renault Courtney Acutt, 1902;
Given by Renault Courtney Acutt to his daughter, Mrs. Doris Ray Courtney Herbert, South Africa;
Her sale, Sotheby's, New Bond St., Drawings of Views of Rome, Florence and elswhere by Giuseppe Zocchi, 11.07.1979 (lot 218, repr. p.54, sold for £400)
Where acquired by Agnew's, London;
Where acquired by the previous owner (Private collection, London)
 
EXHIBITED
London, Thomas Agnew & Sons, Old Master Paintings and Drawings - Autumn Exhibition, 
21.10-12.12.1980, cat. no. 36 (priced at £1,200)
 
 
 
 
Known as the “Canaletto of Florence”, Giuseppe Zocchi was a painter and printmaker who, from his youth, was taken under the protection of the Marchese Andrea Gerini. The Marchese was an intellectual and patron of the arts, who came from a noble family which had been settled in Florence since the 14th century. Gerini sent the young artist to study the work of his contemporaries in Rome, Bologna, Milan and especially Venice, where he remained for almost two years before returning to Florence around 1741. With the views of Canaletto, Bellotto and Marieschi fresh in his mind, Zocchi almost immediately undertook an extensive project for the Marchese, who had commissioned him to produce two series of etched views of Florence and its environs intended for visitors as mementos of their time in the city. Zocchi finished the project by the end of 1741, when his compositions were sent off to the best engravers throughout the Italian Peninsula.