London: Canaletto and Sir John Soane’s Museum

January 30, 2018 at 10:48 pm (Art, London, London 2017)

Canaletto: View in Venice, on the Grand Canal (Riva degli Schiavoni). Date: c. 1734-1735.

Click twice to enlarge; then sit back and take in this marvel.

Many are the views of Venice painted by Giovanni Antonio Canal, called ‘Canaletto’ to distinguish him from his father Bernardo Canal, also a painter. Along with other works by this master, Riva degli Schiavoni is housed in London in Sir John Soane’s Museum. This is without doubt one of the strangest  places I have ever visited.

Sir John Soane (1753-1837) was a brilliant architect and a compulsive collector. Crowded into his house – which is actually  three town houses knocked together to form one domicile – are numerous objects from antiquity, beautiful furnishings, and priceless works of art.

Sir John Soane’s Museum – exterior

 

The Picture Room – a very unique arrangement

 

Dining room

 

On the bottom floor of the Soane Museum is the three thousand year old sarcophagus of Pharoah Seti I. It is carved from a single block of translucent alabaster. To celebrate  the two hundredth anniversary of this object’s discovery, a special viewing was arranged. (This description is from an article in The Guardian last November):

Over three days and nights [when it was first displayed], almost 900 people trooped through his [Soane’s] rooms and into the basement renamed “the Sepulchral Chamber”, where the sarcophagus glowed eerily, lit by candles placed inside. The museum recently recreated the experiment, and deputy director Helen Dorey recalled the extraordinary effect when the whole block lit up like a lantern, and the thousands of tiny human figure hieroglyphics carved into every inch of stone seemed to flicker and move. “It was a truly shiver down the spine moment,” she said.

Below is an illustration of the ‘sepulchral chamber:’

Remember – this was at one time a family home!

Sir John Soane, by Thomas Lawrence

It’s hard not to become incoherent on the subject of Sir John Soane and his fabulous if eccentric house of treasures. Last month, my sister-in-law Donna and I had a wonderful time there. But the Canaletto works are what stayed with me, and most especially the painting at the top of this post:

By his precision of touch, the subtleties of his use of light and shade, by his skillful blending of the qualities of sky and water with every variety of timber, stone and other building materials, Canaletto has surely created a work of art of total harmony and order.

J.G. Links, in The Soane Canalettos