Oil painting, 'A Carpenter' by Luca Carlevarijs, oil on canvas, ca. 1700-ca. 1710

A study of a carpenter, wearing a black hat and apron over a dark brown coat and breeches with a red sash and holding a plank of wood in his right hand, and a basket and saw over the crook of his left elbow. This work is part of an album of fifty-three sketches by Carlevarijs which includes figures and objects he appears to have painted in the open air in preparation for insertion into formal compositions.

Purchased from the funds of Captain H. B. Murray's bequest.

Purchased, 1938

Historical significance: A study of a carpenter, wearing a black hat and apron over a dark brown coat and breeches with a red sash and holding a plank of wood in his right hand, and a basket and saw over the crook of his left elbow. This is one of Carlevarijs’ studies known as macchiette, the quick sketches he made with daubs of colour to indicate animated Venetian figures. Carlevarijs first drew the figures on paper, copying them from people he saw in the streets and then transformed them into lively oil sketches, such as this one, which represent a crucial part of his artistic process. Studies such as these would ultimately form part of a Venetian veduta or prospect painting, which is a genre Carlevarijs is generally credited with establishing in the eighteenth century. He populated his vedute with elegantly posed and distinctly dressed figures, concealing the decline of the Republic under the splendour of the pageants, festivals and regattas he often represented. There is a highly finished pen and wash study for this same figure in the Collezione Salamon, Milan which is inscribed 'falegname' probably in Carlevarij's own hand (Bram de Clerck, 1994 Exh. Cat., no. 104.). Given the polished quality of the pen sketch and its inscription, it seems to have been made as part of a series of engravings of people in different professions in the tradition of those by Guilini (1646) and Mitelli (1660) in Bologna and a precursor of Gaetano Zompini's Venetian series of engravings Le arti che vanno per via nella città di Venezia (1753-54). The same carpenter figure reappears in the left foreground of The Molo and the Piazzetta, Looking West now in a private collection (fig. 20, Beddington). Carlevarijs' sketches also demonstrate his great influence on Canaletto, whose figures and their arrangement often show a marked debt to the older Master such as in Venice: The Feast Day of Saint Roch ca. 1735 (National Gallery, London, NG937).

This work is part of an album of fifty-three sketches by Carlevarijs which includes figures he appears to have painted in the open air in preparation for insertion into formal compositions. The figures and objects appear frequently and virtually without variations in his paintings between 1707 and 1726 and are closely related to his etchings of 1703 in Le fabriche e vedute di Venetia. Composed of 104 views of Venice, the etchings formed the most complete survey of the fabric of the city ever produced and served as a model for Venetian view painters throughout the 18th century. Carlevarijs' sketches reveal a particular attention to costume. As Carlevarijs stated in the dedication to Le fabriche, he intended his paintings to 'rendere più facile alla notitzia de Paesi stranieri le Venete Magnificenze' [render more clearly the magnificence of Venice to foreign countries]

A study of a carpenter, wearing a black hat and apron over a dark brown coat and breeches with a red sash and holding a plank of wood in his right hand, and a basket and saw over the crook of his left elbow. This work is part of an album of fifty-three sketches by Carlevarijs which includes figures and objects he appears to have painted in the open air in preparation for insertion into formal compositions There is a pen and wash study for this same 'falegname' figure in the Collezione Salamon, Milan, possibly for a series of engravings of different professions, and the same figure reappears in the left foreground The Molo and the Piazzetta, Looking West now in a private collection.

P.48-1938