''San Zaccaria, Venice'' is a color photograph taken by German photographer Thomas Struth, in 1995. The photograph was taken inside the

San Zaccaria The Church of San Zaccaria is a 15th-century former monastic church in central Venice, Italy. It is a large edifice, located in the Campo San Zaccaria, just off the waterfront to the southeast of Piazza San Marco and St Mark's Basilica. It is ded ...

church in

Venice Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 bridges. The isla ...

, and is part of his series ''Museum Photographs,'' dedicated to the interior of several museums and monuments across the world. It has a ten prints edition.

History and description

Struth became interested by the work of the Italian painter Giovanni Bellini, due to his conexion to the Scottish art historian Giles Robertson, who published a monograph on him, in 1968, and who had been the subject of two of his portraits. Struth took interest in the current painting, the ''

San Zaccaria Altarpiece The ''San Zaccaria Altarpiece'' (also called ''Madonna Enthroned with Child and Saints'') is a painting by the Italian Renaissance painter Giovanni Bellini, executed in 1505 and located in the church of San Zaccaria, Venice. History The work w ...

'' or ''Sacra Conversazione'', after this book and also after visiting

, in 1990. He decided to include it, in his religious environment, in his series dedicated to ''Museum Photographs'', that he took from 1990 to 2003. The current photograph focus in particular in the ''San Zaccaria Altarpiece'', seen at the center of the composition, and surrounded by several others religious themed paintings in the church where it is located. The altarpiece depicting the

Virgin Mary Mary; arc, ܡܪܝܡ, translit=Mariam; ar, مريم, translit=Maryam; grc, Μαρία, translit=María; la, Maria; cop, Ⲙⲁⲣⲓⲁ, translit=Maria was a first-century Jewish woman of Nazareth, the wife of Joseph and the mother of ...

with the Christ Child, surrounded by saints, is notable for his use of

trompe l'oeil A trompe is a water-powered air compressor, commonly used before the advent of the electric-powered compressor. A trompe is somewhat like an airlift pump working in reverse. Trompes were used to provide compressed air for bloomery furnaces ...

, which stands out in Struth's photograph. The photograph unites both the spaces of the paintings in the wall and the interior of the church, with his large columns, pews and several visitors. A couple of visitors is seen at the left, attentively looking at the altarpiece. Other people are seated in the row of pews, possibly in meditation or prayer, as they mark the receding perspective of the composition. As in other similar works of the author, past and present in the mediums of painting and photography are united to create a new artwork. The

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

website states: "Struth's picture unifies the timeless and the ephemeral, making the ideal and the real two perspectives on the same theme. But if his photograph rivals painting on the high ground of seriousness and looks back upon five hundred years of tradition, it also faces forward: It will convey this inheritance to the next new medium that will, in turn, reflect upon photography and painting."

Art market

A print of the photograph was sold by $1.124.191 at Christie's

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

, on 18 October 2013, making it one of the highest prices reached by one of his works.

Public collections

There are prints of this photograph at the

Hamburger Bahnhof Hamburger Bahnhof is the former terminus of the Berlin–Hamburg Railway in Berlin, Germany, on Invalidenstrasse in the Moabit district opposite the Charité hospital. Today it serves as a contemporary art museum, the , part of the Berlin Nati ...

, the

Kunsthaus Zürich The Kunsthaus Zürich is in terms of area the biggest art museum of Switzerland and houses one of the most important art collections in Switzerland, assembled over the years by the local art association called '. The collection spans from the Midd ...

, the

Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art The Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art is a privately owned contemporary art gallery in Oslo in Norway. It was founded and opened to the public in 1993. The collection's main focus is the American appropriation artists from the 1980s, but it is ...

, in

Oslo Oslo ( , , or ; sma, Oslove) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city's greater urban area had a population ...

, the

, in New York, the

Cleveland Museum of Art The Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA) is an art museum in Cleveland, Ohio, located in the Wade Park District, in the University Circle neighborhood on the city's east side. Internationally renowned for its substantial holdings of Asian and Egyptian ...

, among others.Cleveland Museum of Art
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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:San Zaccaria, Venice 1990s photographs 1995 in art Color photographs Photographs by Thomas Struth Photographs of the Metropolitan Museum of Art