Original etching, signed in plate " B.B. called Canaletto f. " lower right; De Vesme 23 ; Succi, La Serenissima in the Copper Mirror. Splendor of an Eighteenth-Century Figurative Civilization. The Complete Works of the Great Venetian Masters, 2 Bde, Crocetta del Montello 2013, Bd. 1, S. 346, no. 23 Abb. S. 346; Kozakiewicz, 1972, Bd. 2, S.;
Superb proof of this very rare print. Printed on paper with "Pine cone" watermark often found in Bellotto's coeval works. Perfectly preserved and with a margin thread beyond the copperplate impression.
During his brief stay in Vienna, Bernardo Bellotto worked mostly on commissions from the highest echelons of the Austrian state, including Empress Maria Theresa of Austria.
Her was indeed a reign of great cultural development, thanks in part to her ability to surround herself with leading figures of the Austrian Enlightenment. It is therefore not surprising that an artist of Bernardo Bellotto's caliber should stop in Vienna.
In 1741, Archduchess Maria Theresa of Austria commissioned a new intimate theater near to her Viennese palace. Here Bernardo Bellotto portrays a production on the stage and includes the composer, Joseph Starzer, seated at the harpsichord, and the director of the Imperial Theater, Count Giacomo Durazzo, standing in the box on the right. On stage is the ballet Le Turc Genereux -the story of a Turk who releases a prisoner to her lover- staged in honor of the Turkish envoy's visit to the Imperial Theater.
Although it was a court theater, its productions were open to any paying person regardless of social classes. Bellotto gives an idea of the atmosphere by showing spectators facing outward and intent on conversation. Engaging the spirit of theater, the artist also plays provocatively with the layered worlds of fantasy and reality in the perspective scene.
The ballet, choreographed by Franz Hilverding, was beloved by the Austrian court, so much so that in 1764 Princess Marie Antoinette -future queen consort of France- and two of her brothers were invited to take part as dancers.