Theresa Thompson goes Venetian at the Christ Church Picture Gallery

A View of Venice, a rare panorama painted in the late 16th century by an unknown hand, hangs outside the drawings gallery at Christ Church Picture Gallery, Oxford.

Fresh back from restoration, the oil painting, not displayed at the gallery for 20 years, makes a terrific starting point for a show that itself is a pleasing counterpoint to the Venetian drawings exhibition at the Ashmolean Museum.

Storm clouds, orange and violent and reflecting the evening sun, loom over the busy lagoon in the Netherlandish painting. Moody turquoise grey waters fill the lower half of the picture, and gondolas and sailboats ply their trade between islands and mainland.

In the left foreground some Venetians are waiting to embark; almost certainly they’re going across to the Piazzetta (the Campanile and Doges’ Palace unmistakeably visible), and the eye is led to them by the fashionable lady whose costume not only mirrors the colours of sky and sail but also steals the light.

Beside the painting, drawings from Christ Church’s collection depict the fashions of the day. Jacopo Palma’s Venetian Lady Seated corresponds closely with the dress of the women in the panorama, while Francesco Terzi’s lovely drawing of the Empress Anna echoes both her sweeping dress and lace collar and the slight turn of her frame.

For the Picture Gallery’s exhibition, curator Jacqueline Thalmann has chosen to look at another aspect of Venice’s creative output: its printing culture. The display, Printing Ideas, begins with the visitor first passing another oil painting, one not normally on show, an Adoration of the Shepherds, labelled as probably by Titian. “It is questionable,” Jacqueline said, “because the painting is very abraded and you can’t see the brushwork sufficiently. But we know the composition is Titian’s. And proof that it’s a Titian is all those prints after it that we have on show.”

It is hard to know where to start with over 30 drawings precious drawings to choose between – Dürer, Campagnola, Mantegna, Palma Giovane among them – but on the far wall of the drawings gallery is the chance to compare a row of woodcuts and an engraving made after the Titian painting. You see the same figures in the prints as in the oil, the way for instance that the mother holds the baby’s wrapper – in reverse, of course.

“We decided to show so many so that people can see the technique of woodcuts,” says Jacqueline. “When you make prints you want to make many, and over time the plates break. So, in one or two, if you look at them closely, you see the wear and tear, such as holes in a damaged plate that on the print were filled in later by hand.”

Looking closely pays dividends. The detail is astonishing, especially drawings made as designs for prints like the two landscapes by Campagnola with their crisp pen and ink lines that almost define the line for the printmaker already, or the two Parentino allegories with their close hatching, drawings made probably with prints in mind or possibly as a frontispiece.

This remarkable show runs until January 25. If you have not already seen it, make it your new year resolution to do so before it’s too late.

Where and when
A View of Venice – a rare and unknown panorama of Venice from the late 16th century – is at Christ Church Picture Gallery until January 25