Abundance

This allegory of Abundance at the Walker Art Gallery belongs to Guardi's activity as a figure and decorative painter in the workshop tradition he shared with his brother Gianantonio. Before establishing himself primarily as a vedutista, Francesco participated in the family workshop's production of figure paintings, altarpieces, and decorative panels for Venetian patrons. The Abundance figure — a personification of material prosperity typically depicted with cornucopia or overflowing vessels — was standard Baroque decorative iconography, required for the painted ceilings and overdoor decorations of aristocratic Venetian palaces. Guardi brings to this large panel the atmospheric luminosity he was developing simultaneously in his early vedute, the figure rendered with the same loose, rapidly applied brushwork that characterized his most personal work. The Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool holds this as part of its collection of Italian Baroque and Rococo painting, where the overlap between decorative and fine art traditions is well represented.

The allegorical figure is rendered with Guardi's characteristic quick, fluid brushwork. The decorative composition shows his early training in the Venetian tradition of large-scale figure painting.