uardi Gianantonio
(Vienna 1699 - Venice 1760)
The Flight into Egypt
Biography
Guardi was born in Vienna the son of Domenico Guardi (1678–1716), a minor Baroque painter from Trentino, and the elder brother of the more famous Francesco Guardi. He was trained by his father and after his death Giovanni Antonio took over the studio.
He may have received his artistic training in Vienna, where he is first recorded in 1719, but had established a workshop in Venice by 1730. Among his first important clients was the connoisseur and collector Johann Matthias von der Schulenburg, for whom Guardi produced copies after the work of other artists, as well as a series of Turkish-inspired interiors as easel pictures for private decoration. Antonio Guardi trained his younger brothers Nicolò and Francesco in his workshop, the latter working closely with him as a figure painter before establishing himself as a vedutista in the late 1750s.
Guardi was a founder member of the Accademia Veneziana in 1756, the elder Guardi produced several works for churches in Venice, notably in the Church of the Angelo San Raffaele, as well as decorative cycles for palaces and villas in the city and the surrounding terraferma.
Collections
Guardi is represented in the following collections: Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge; John Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles; National Gallery of Art, Washington; Art Insitiue of Chicago, Chicago; Accademia Carrara, Bergamo; Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio; Museo Correr, Venice; Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, amongst others.