Master Art

Following his first visit to Venice in 1842, Félix Ziem returned there many times over the next five decades, sometimes annually, and came to be closely associated with the city. Indeed, he became known as the ‘painter of Venice’, a city that he seems to have regarded as his second home. The present sheet, which may probably be dated to the first half of the 1870s, depicts the Bacino di San Marco seen from the entrance to the lagoon, with the Campanile and the Doge’s Palace in the centre distance, and the church of Santa Maria della Salute with the entrance to the Grand Canal at the left of the composition.