Footnotes

• Provenance:
  The artist's studio sale, Christie's, 22nd May, 1880, lot 122, sold to Neck for 135Gns;
  Thomas Parker, an automotive engineer from Bosham, from c.1886;
  The family of the present owners.
  
  The present lot is possibly the work listed as No. 77/3 'Grand Canal & Giardini' in John Munday's catalogue on the artist, E W Cooke RA FRS: A Man of His time, Woodbridge, 1996, p. 356.
  
  As John Munday observes, the present lot is typical of the 'on the spot' studies which Cooke produced during his many sketching trips to Venice. On returning to England, the artist would have his sketches laid down on canvas or panel. He had a specially adapted gondola in which he would sit and paint, in this case anchored in the Bacino San Marco, to the left the domes of Santa Maria della Salute, and to the right the range of the Zecca and the Bibliotheca Marciana with the twin columns of San Marco and San Theodoro on the Piazzetta.
  
  Cooke first painted Venice in 1850; he was elected to the RA in 1864, and always used his letters. Cooke uses his initials on the reverse of the present lot, which suggests that either this work was painted after 1864, or that, as was common with the artist, he inscribed his work when it was sold or sent for exhibition.
  
  We are grateful to John Munday for his kind assistance in cataloguing this lot.

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Category: Fine Art / 19th Century Paintings

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