The Camden Town Group in Context

Madame Blanche Marchesi (1863–1940), sold Christie’s, London, 10 March 1916 (136), bought in at 42 guineas; anonymous sale (not Mme Marchesi), sold Christie’s, London, 9 July 1920 (69), bought in at 50 guineas; anonymous sale Christie’s, London, 22 June 1923 (38), bought for 62 guineas by Lord Henry Cavendish-Bentinck (1863–1931); inherited by his wife in 1931, and bequeathed to Tate Gallery 1940.

Venice: La Salute was painted over an earlier unfinished work. The linen canvas was originally much larger in size and was cut down on the bottom and left-hand (proper) sides, indicating that the original image was probably in portrait format. The support was supplied by L. Cornelissen & Son who prepared the canvas with size and lead white primer. An opaque grey layer has been applied over the white primer and may be the upper part of the commercial priming but more likely was applied by Sickert to produce a toned ground.

A grid measuring 30 mm² in what appears to be a graphic medium has been applied directly onto the grey layer. The grid lines are continuous to the cut edges, indicating that they relate to the original larger format composition, although Sickert may have reused them for this work. Red paint has been drawn with a brush onto the grey layer. The lines are visible beneath the paint film and along the tacking edges but do not relate to Venice: La Salute and may be part of an abandoned figurative subject. Crude black painted lines, probably marking the edges of the composition, are present along three of the edges. These were made before the canvas was cut down and attached to its existing stretcher. A white coating has been applied to the back of the canvas after it was re-stretched. It may have been applied as a protective coating on the back of the canvas or to impart stiffness to the painted support after it had been re-stretched.

Sickert initially sketched the composition in black paint over the underlying work. Patches of colour were then loosely applied in a fluid paint that flowed across the surface and dried conforming to the canvas weave. Each application would have been allowed to dry before overlying layers were applied, gradually building up the composition. Sickert selected a range of drab colours which he would have pre-mixed on his palette before starting to paint on any particular day, probably incorporating black in each. He modified the medium of his paint to vary the gloss and saturation of his colours creating subtle contrasts that echo the play of light and shade from the different surfaces. He moved across the painting applying blocks of muted tones of grey, brown, green and blue, leaving accents of the underlying paint and primer exposed. Varying his brushwork to create a sense of movement, he depicted the choppy water in short low impasto strokes, the columns in long fluid strokes, the sky in broad summary strokes, and architectural details in single rapid touches. The technique used was designed to retain a freshness of finish that did not appear laboured or overworked and captured the changing atmosphere of the scene.

On his first visits to Venice, Walter Sickert focused on painting the familiar landmarks of the city. The church of Santa Maria della Salute occurs a number of times in his pictures (fig.1), usually viewed from the vantage point of the Molo near St Mark’s.1 However, in Venice: La Salute, the vantage point is much closer and raises the possibility that Sickert might initially have sketched it from a boat. The other, more prosaic prospect is that Sickert simply cropped a fuller, more distant view of the church. This is certainly supported by his concentration on a ‘close up’ of part of Santa Maria della Salute. It enables him to give a sense not just of the detail of the architecture, but its bulk and mass, and there is also a sense of approaching or retreating from the church steps. Such cropping was a device appropriated from the impressionist painter Edgar Degas, and was used to produce more dynamic and interesting compositions.

Sickert made two versions of this oil. One of them was exhibited in Paris at Bernheim’s in 1907, but it is not possible to distinguish which. The other painting was first owned by Lord Croft, and is now entitled The Steps of Santa Maria della Salute c.1901 (private collection).2 There are a number of differences between the two works. The Tate picture has a shallower foreground than The Steps of Santa Maria della Salute, and is more silvery and grey in palette. The other version has the same figures on the steps, but the one on the left is painted in red to give a prominent accent to the composition. Both works are based on a charcoal and brown wash drawing, exhibited as Salute at the Carfax Gallery in May 1912.3

The first recorded owner of the Tate picture is the opera singer Blanche Marchesi (1863–1940). Born in France, she pursued her career in London from 1896 for much of her life. It is possible that Sickert knew her, and she certainly moved in artistic circles, visiting for instance the painter Paul Albert Besnard (1849–1934) in his Paris studio.4