A View of the Molo and the Riva degli Schiavone in Venice

This early Guardi view at the Yale University Art Gallery from around 1750 captures the Molo and Riva degli Schiavoni from the water — the view one would see from a gondola approaching Venice from the Bacino. The Molo, the broad stone pier along the palace's southern facade, was punctuated by the famous twin columns of San Marco and San Todaro, Venice's western-facing gateway to the lagoon. The Riva degli Schiavoni extending to the east was the city's most animated waterfront promenade, its quays lined with moored gondolas, trading vessels, and the constant traffic of a working port city. Yale's University Art Gallery, one of the oldest university art museums in the United States, holds this as part of its collection of European Baroque and Rococo paintings that includes several important Italian examples. The early date of around 1750 places this in the same period as Guardi's most systematic initial engagement with the veduta genre, painting the canonical subjects of Venetian topography for the first time with an eye on Canaletto's successful commercial formula.

The composition opens along the Molo toward the distant island of San Giorgio, the broad Bacino animated by gondola and sailing traffic. Guardi's loose, calligraphic handling of the boat traffic creates movement and luminosity. His palette — warm stone, blue water, pale sky — is typical, but the handling of light on the water surface has his characteristic shimmering quality.