An original 18th-century watercolour painting, Sir Thomas Slingsby, Gondoliers, Grand Canal, Venice.

A wonderfully characterful painting by Sir Thomas Slingsby of Scriven, 9th Baronet (1775–1835). The Slingsby family resided at Scriven Hall, Knaresborough and were large landowners in the area.

This painting, titled 'Venezia', shows a pair of gondoliers on the Grand Canal in Venice. It is constructed no doubt with a consciousness of the vedute—recognisable city views—for which Venice had become the renowned centre by the mid-18th century. The ethereal colour palette of blue-greys seems to evoke Venice's watery light, and its atmosphere evokes the tradition of the 'colore' of the local Venetian school, which emphasized the particular properties of light and atmosphere.

It is likely that this watercolour was executed on Thomas Slingsby's own Grand Tour of Italy as a young man: labelled diligently in Italian, it seems to capture the character of the place in a way that the imagination alone could not.

Provenance: This painting derives from a collection associated with the Walpole family, which includes a portrait of children 'Catherine Margaret (1804-1876) & Thomas (1805-1881) (children of Thomas Walpole and Lady Margaret Perceval, youngest daughter of the 2nd Earl of Egmont and sister of Prime Minister Spencer Perceval; great-grandchildren of 1st Baron Walpole, younger brother of Prime Minister the 1st Earl of Orford) and another drawing of children ‘Kate and Charles’ by Elizabeth Walpole, 1815.

On wove paper laid down on grey backing paper.