Venice: I Gesuati

Venetians call this church on the Zattere, the long quay facing the Giudecca canal, the Gesuati, after a religious order that no longer existed when it was built. The Gesuati were founded in Siena in the 14th century and got their nickname from how often they called on the name of Jesus. They had nothing to do with the Jesuits, whose own church stands in the north of the city. Pope Clement IX dissolved the order in 1668, the Dominicans bought its property at auction, and between 1725 and 1743 they raised the present church, designed by Giorgio Massari, with ceiling paintings inside by Giambattista Tiepolo. Its official name is Santa Maria del Rosario, and hardly anyone uses it.

Sargent painted it around 1911 from close in, near the water's edge. The giant columns of the front run straight off the top of the sheet, so what we get is the base of the church, its steps and its pale stone, with a few dark figures standing on the quay below.