Timeline

Michele Marieschi was the most romantic of the eighteenth century Venetian view painters. Born in Venice in 1710, he began his career as a scene painter and his first recorded activity was the preparation in 1731 of the setting for the Carnival Thursday celebrations in the Piazzetta. In the mid-1730s he began to paint capricci influenced by Marco Ricci and Luca Carlevarijs, followed by Venetian views inspired by Canaletto’s success with the genre.

Marieschi was a member of the Guild of Painters in Venice from 1736 to 1741. In 1735 he went to Fano to attend the funeral of Maria Clementina Sobieski and made two drawings of the ceremony which were subsequently engraved. In 1736 Marieschi received payment from Marshal Schulenberg for views of the Rialto and the Doge’s Palace; he continued to be an important patron until the artist’s death. Marieschi began to etch in the 1730s; in 1741, towards the end of his short life, he published a series of twenty-one etchings after his views entitled Magnificentiores Selectioresque Urbis Venetiarum Prospectus.

The works of Michele Marieschi is represented in National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin; the National Museum, Stockholm; the National Gallery, London, the Accademia, Venice; the Museo Correr, Venice; the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.