Albert Ferdinand Duprat

ALBERT FERDINAND DUPRAT (Italy, 1882-1974)
"View of Venice".
Oil on canvas.
Signed in the lower margin.
Measurements: 47 x 55 cm; 72 x 82 cm (frame).

This Venetian View of Ferdinand Duprat is clearly heir of the vedutismo but reinterpreted from an atmospheric and luminous sensibility.

The composition, enlivened by the presence of the gondola in the foreground, guides the eye along the canal and creates a sense of serene depth. The loose, impastoed brushwork, together with a warm, golden palette, reinforce the play of reflections of water and sky.

Trained at the School of Fine Arts in Venice, the city where he was born, Duprat developed an oeuvre marked by his deep love for Italy and, in particular, for Venice, recurrently represented through canals, monuments and views of the lagoon. He did not seek topographical precision, but a poetic and melancholic evocation of the city, captured under a twilight light favorable to his pictorial vision.

For a period he also lived in Paris, where he painted the Seine and its bridges, transferring that same luminous sensibility to broader and brighter panoramas. This work summarizes in an exemplary way his pictorial credo: an idealized, timeless and silent Venice, turned into a privileged scenario to explore the vibration of light.