Provenance

Private collection.

Carlo Ponti set up a successful photography business in Venice in the 1850s, having moved there as both a photographer and optician. Many of these were sold as souvenirs of the city, and the advent of photography had made these more accessible alternatives to previously painted views of the city. In 1866, Ponti had been made the photographer to Victor Emanuelle II. These six photographs, likely to have been purchased as a set, show some iconic landmarks from the city.

Three of these show the Ponte dei Sospiri, or Bridge of Sighs, from different positions. Taken the furthest away, one shows the Ponte del Remedio, Ponte della Canonia, and the Bridge of Sighs furthest away. It appears that, from the angle of the view, this image was taken from a gondola. The next is taken from the Ponte del Remedio, and the last is taken from the other side of the bridge, on the Ponte della Paglia.

One photograph has been taken from the exterior balcony of the Doge’s Palace, overlooking the canal. Through the arches, the island of San Giorgio Maggiore, with the monastery and its campanile.

Another photograph captures the Piraeus Lion at the Arsenal. Venetian only through location, Francesco Morosini brought the Piraeus Lion to the Arsenal upon his return from Athens in 1687. It was here that he had defeated the Turks, destroying a large part of the Parthenon in the process. The lion now sits with four others in front of the entrance to the arsenal. From around 570 BC, the statue stands at over three metres tall. It also features a series of Scandinavian runes added in the second half of the eleventh century.

Finally, Ponti has photographed the Porta della Carta- the main ceremonial entrance to the Doge’s Palace. There is one thing missing from the view- and that is the statue of Francesco Foscari and St Mark’s lion, which belongs just above the doorway. The original statue was destroyed in 1797 during the Napoleonic wars and replaced with a replica by Luigi Ferrari in 1885[1].

[1] Matthew Imms, ‘The Porta della Carta of the Palazzo Ducale (Doge’s Palace), Venice, beside the Basilica of San Marco (St Mark’s) 1840 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, September 2018, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2019, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-the-porta-della-carta-of-the-palazzo-ducale-doges-palace-r1197046, accessed 09 June 2025.