Lot 112. Giovanni Antonio Guardi (1699 Vienna - 1760 Venice), Portrait of Ferdinand VI of Spain. Oil on canvas, mounted on hardboard. 104 x 82 cm. Estimate: € 90,000 - € 100,000. © Lempertz

Provenance: Field Marshal Matthias von der Schulenburg. - Owned by his descendants until the 20th century. - Private property Italy.

Exhibited: Palazzo Grassi, Venice 1965, I Guardi, p. 21, no. 13. - Accademia Carrara, Bergamo 2003/2004: Fra'Galgario e il ritratto in Europe, Settecento.

Literature: A. Morassi: Antonio Guardi ai servigi del Feldmaresciallo Schulenburg, in: Emporium CXXXI, May 1960, p. 204. - A. Morassi: Guardi, Venezia 1973, pp. 59-60, no. 122, II, fig. 146. - A. Binion: The Galleria Scomparsa del Maresciallo of the Schulenburg, Milano 1990, p. 179, 245, 259. - F. Pedrocco, F. Montecuccoli degli Erri: Antonio Guardi, Milano 1992, p. 42, 120, fig. 70

Note: From 1729 to 1746, ie 17 years, Gian Antonio Guardi worked as a painter in the service of Field Marshal Matthias von der Schulenburg, one of the greatest art collectors in Venice of the 18th century. The works from the Guardi workshop in Schulenburg's collection finally added up to 106 pictures. Among them were also copies of other artists, for one of the preferences of the field marshal were portraits of the rulers of his time. Giantonio Guardi performed the portraits of Philip V, the first Bourbon on the Spanish throne, including his second wife, Elisabeth Farnese, and his son and successor, Ferdinand VI. His role models were portraits of Louis Michel van Loo.

According to the label on the back, our picture was still in the possession of the von Schulenburg family in 1957. The cash book in the Schulenburg Archive records in 1746, among other things, the payment for the portrait of the Prince of Asturias (Pedrocco 1992 op. Cit., P. 39), with which this picture must be meant. In July 1746 he entered the Spanish throne under the name Ferdinand VI.