Palazzo Vendramin, Venice
On loan to The Met
This work of art is currently on loan to the museum.Between 1845 and 1852, John Ruskin (1819–1900)—British art critic, artist, social reformer, and quintessential Victorian—made repeated trips to Venice to study Gothic architectural monuments, which he felt were in danger of destruction or alteration by modern restoration practices. He purchased and commissioned daguerreotypes from photographers working in the city, including an itinerant French practitioner, likely Cavalier Iller. For Ruskin, the resulting daguerreotypes preserved a disappearing heritage, and he used them as the basis for illustrations in his encyclopedic opus The Stones of Venice (1851–53). This oblique view of a still-standing fifteenth-century palazzo on the Grand Canal emphasizes the juxtaposition of the heavily ornamented facade against an austere garden-facing exterior wall.
Artwork Details
- Title: Palazzo Vendramin, Venice
- Artist: Attributed to John Ruskin (British, London 1819–1900 Brantwood, Cumbria)
- Date: ca. 1846–1851
- Medium: Daguerreotype
- Classification: Photographs
- Credit Line: W. Bruce & Delaney H. Lundberg Collection
- Curatorial Department: Photographs