Carlo Bossoli spent his youth and the beginning of his artistic career in Odessa, Ukraine. In 1839, he conducted his first trip to Italy where he remained for a year, travelling to Rome, Naples and other principal cities of the peninsula. In 1840 he returned to the Crimea, though left for good in 1843, heading to Ticino and Milan, alternating between the two until 1853 when he moved to Turin for good. During the course of the 1850s, the artist carried out the majority of his travels - it was also the most productive period of his career. In 1850, Bossoli travelled to England and Scotland and the following year to Spain and Morocco. In 1853 and in 1855, he returned to London where, in 1854, he published Views of the Crimea, in which he showed some of the works executed during his youth. Between 1859 and 1861 Bossoli was employed by Eugenio di Savoia Carignano to follow the Piedmontese troops and to document the military action from the Second War of Independence. These experiences effected the artist’s health, and during the latter stages of the war he moved and painted less; his last important voyage was in 1867 when he toured Scandinavia and Central Europe. In 1862, Bossoli received the title Pittore reale di storia (History Painter to the King) by Vittorio Emanuele II. In the course of his life he exhibited at Brera (1845, 1852), Promotrice di Belle Arti in Turin (1844, 1848, 1851, 1852, 1855 e 1884) and at the Royal Academy London (1855, 1859).

Bossoli portrayed almost every corner of Europe, gaining great success in Italy as well as abroad. His works are an important contribution both to the knowledge of historical events and to the history of costume. They also offer an unparalleled survey of European landscapes and architecture, always reproduced with great attention to detail, and enriched with scenes of local colour that bestow a particular note of liveliness on Bossoli’s works.

The present painting depicts Venice, blanketed in the cold light of sunrise. The panorama, painted from the shore between the churches of San Giovanni in Bragora and San Biagio, looks out west towards the Isola di San Giorgio, the Salute and the Punta di Dogana and, to the right, the Palazzo Ducale and the campanile of San Marco. The bay is a hive of activity as boats and gondolas traverse from all angles. Executed in tempera, it is an early work by the artist, created around 1846 or 1847.

Ada Peyrot claims that Bossoli only travelled to Venice once during 1847, in September and October (A. Peyrot, Carlo Bossoli. Luoghi, personaggi, costumi, avvenimenti nell’Europa dell’Ottocento, visti dal pittore ticinese, Turin, 1974, vol., I, p. 104). However, Luigi Torelli noted in his 1885 biography of the artist that from 1846 “from Milan, his headquarters, Bossoli made regular excursions lasting weeks or months at a time; travelling throughout Lombardy and the Veneto. One can easily imagine how he came to like Venice. Not only did he stay there for a very long period of time but he also frequently returned, filing a large number of his sketchbooks, as he did with his views of the lakes and any panoramas that particularly captivated him” (L. Torelli, Il pittore Carlo Bossoli. Breve biografia scritta in omaggio d’amicizia, Turin, 1885). Torelli should be viewed as an authoritative source on the artist in this period, for in 1846 Bossoli moved to the via Porta Orientale in Milan, where the author also lived.

A painting in oil on panel, belonging to a private collection in Turin, depicts a similar view of San Marco taken from a similar angle, though at dusk and of larger dimensions (77 x 102 cm, see Peyrot, op. cit., vol I, no. 172). The larger view also shows a section of the pier in the foreground, animated with figures. Peyrot proposes that the work, signed but not dated, is stylistically coeval with other works by the artist of around 1849, which suggests that the panel derives its composition from the present tempera.

The fact that his travels around the Venetian lagoon had an extraordinary effect on Bossoli is evident from the large number of sketches he produced of the locale. The Catalogo dei dipinti include, in fact, certain sales of works depicting Venice in the years immediately following 1846 (no paintings with this subject were sold in that year, but six were sold in 1847, four in 1848, two in 1849, one in 1850, two in 1851, five in 1853 and one in 1855), one of those could perhaps pertain to this particular work, though lamentably the absence of further descriptive particulars make it extremely difficult to unequivocally identify the works. The location of the majority of these works is today unknown (Peyrot published only three in 1974), something that confers an important connotation of rarity to the present work. Its rarity is further enhanced by its quality and the remarkable attention to detail, traits that characterised Bossoli’s production during the following years.