Grand Canal, Venice by Renoir in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, January 2018

Grand Canal, Venice

Pierre-Auguste Renoir (French, 1841–1919)

1881

Medium/Technique: Oil on canvas

Dimensions: 54 x 65.1 cm (21 1/4 x 25 5/8 in.)

Credit Line Bequest of Alexander Cochrane

Accession Number: 19.173

Collections: Europe

Classifications: Paintings

When Renoir’s Venetian pictures were first exhibited, one critic called them, “the most outrageous series of ferocious daubs that any slanderer of Venice could possibly imagine.” They constituted a radical departure from traditional Venetian "vedute"—detailed paintings emphasizing the architecture of the city’s famous monuments. Barely recognizable as the stretch of canal between the Ca’ Foscari palace and the Rialto Bridge, Renoir’s picture dissolves the stone façades, leaving their glistening reflections of pink, yellow and orange on the water below.

Inscriptions: Lower right: Renoir. 81.

Provenance: May 12, 1882, sold by the artist to Durand-Ruel, Paris (stock no. 2110) [see note 1]; from Durand-Ruel, Paris to Durand-Ruel, New York (stock no. 2350); July 5, 1889, sold by Durand-Ruel to Alexander Cochrane (b. 1840 - d. 1919), Boston; 1919, bequest of Alexander Cochrane to the MFA. (Accession Date: June 3, 1919)

NOTES:
[1] The provenance was provided in a letter from Durand-Ruel, Paris to the MFA (February 20, 1962; in MFA curatorial file).

Text from: collections.mfa.org/objects/31792/grand-canal-venice