Tuesday, January 16, 2007

The mystery of the Venice pastiche

We got a painting a few years ago. It's no masterpiece, but it sits quite well in our library.

At first glance, it's a picture of Venice.



But it's not. There is a limited number of larger bridges in Venice, and this is not one of them.

A friend of my wife has indicated that it's a pastiche. The main buildings come from a variety of different places; the fishing boat shouldn't be there; and the gondolas aren't Venetian.

The signature is J Glenn, for what it's worth. A competent amateur at best, given the pastiche nature, and the attempted fixup of the building at left. But someone must have been happy with the painting, because it's been given quite a good frame.

I'm curious to know the exact origin of the various elements - in particular, the bridge, and the building at left. Bonus points for the non-descript building second left, and the foreground vista. (I will post some closeups of these.) I would be surprised if the painting doesn't contain some elements of Venice.

Still, it lends good ambience to the room it's in, anchoring the library and bringing that space closer to what we envisaged in the very first place.

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