Master of the Langmatt Fundation

In activity in Venice from 1750 to 1780

The identity of this vedutist, named after the thirteen Venetian vedute in the collection of the Langmatt Foundation in Baden, Switzerland, remains somewhat provisional. His body of work, which continues to expand as more and more work is attributed to him, displays an artist with a skilful hand, preoccupied with the construction of rigorous perspectives, who enlivened his views with figures rendered with verve and often accented with bright colours. Stylistically, his œuvre appears to have been nourished by the work of Carlevarijs and Richter.

It is on this basis that Prof. Dario Succi has suggested (cf. Mithos Venedig-Venezianische Veduten des 18. Jahrhunderts, Baden, 1994, pp. 38 to 51) that this mysterious master was none other than Apollonio Domenichini. The latter, dubbed il Menichino, is listed in the registers of the Venetian fraglia of painters in 1757 and was indeed the student of Carlevarijs and Richter. A striking artistic personality in his day, Domenichini was often cited by his contemporaries as on a par with the currently better known vedutists such as Canaletto and Guardi, among others. In fact his name appears repeatedly in the consignments made by Gian Maria Sasso, a famous merchant at the time, for the English minister John Strange.