Considered to be a pre-cursor to French Impressionists, Ziem’s style employed loose, energetic brushwork and flickering effects of light, which indeed have affinities with Monet and other Impressionist painters. The artist traveled widely including Turkey, Greece, Italy, Egypt, and Lebanon. This work depicts one of the artist’s favorite subjects: the canals of Venice. Ziem first visited Venice in 1841 and returned there nearly every year until the 1890s. This large panel shows the pageant associated with Venice’s Marriage of the Adriatic, which symbolized the maritime dominion of the city.
