View of Venice - Gabriele Bella (Venice, 1720 - 1799)

Venice, S. Marco and the column of S.Todaro
Gabriele Bella (Venice, 1720 - 1799)
Oil painting on canvas
Period around 1770
Canvas cm. 100 x 60
Frame cm. 121 x 80
Excellent condition

A magnificent large view of the heart of Venice featuring the column of San Todaro, one of the two famous monuments that stand in Piazza San Marco and support the statues dedicated to the patron saints of the city.

The work is to be included in the repertoire of Gabriele Bella (Venice, 1720 - 1799) and expresses in a very convincing way the peculiarities of his painting with a very personal and unusual use of color and with a simple but rich in ideas descriptive technique, typical of a self-taught artist.
He belongs to the current of Venetian painters who portrayed the festive life of the Serenissima in its last century of life; his art is naive, but very faithful to the subject, so his works, together with those of his contemporaries Canaletto and Guardi, are valid testimonies of the customs of his time.

His name remained unknown compared to many of his contemporary artists, because his painting was the painting of a self-taught person intent on reproducing the lively and festive life of the City, the more intimate one carried out indoors and the public one of large outdoor ceremonies .

Bella proved to be very interesting for the documentary value of his works and for the meticulousness of his visions.
Most of his paintings are found in the Querini-Stampalia art gallery in Venice, which has around seventy of them.

The work published here is to be considered among the most successful and interesting that rarely appear on the market, both for the beauty of the context described and for the important size.