The Palazzo Venier dei Leoni

Home of the Peggy Guggenheim Art Collection

The Peggy Guggenheim Museum: photo by "TheRunnerUp". Image published under GNU Free Documentation License, version 1.2.

The intention was that the Palazzo Venier dei Leoni on the Grand Canal should be a magnificent neo-classical palace. However, the construction work never progressed beyond the first storey.

The original design was for a huge triple-arched reception hall which would have supported two further tiers of arches on the second and third floors. The architect, Lorenzo Boschetti, wished to create an imposing central facade set-off by a symmetrical arrangement of windows and colonnades.

However, the grand triple arch never progressed beyond the two massive columns, now completely covered in ivy, which stand at the main entrance to the palazzo.

It is uncertain why the project was abandoned in 1774. It is possible that work ceased due to a lack of funds, or that the powerful Correr family, whose family seat overlooked the site, objected to the design.

The most likely reason is that  the intended depth of the foundations would have caused structural damage to adjoining buildings.

It is also unclear why the palace became known as the “House of the Lions”. Although several sculptures of howling lions decorate its facade, this not unusual in Venice, and so it seems more likely that the palace acquired its name because a pet lion was once kept in its grounds.

The palazzo used to belong to Peggy Guggenheim, the first wife of the German impressionist Max Ernst, and the niece of the mining tycoon, Samuel Guggenheim. It was acquired after her death by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, and is now an art museum.

The gallery is far smaller than the other Guggenheim museums in New York, Berlin, Bilbao, and Las Vegas. It mainly consists of Peggy Guggenheim’s own personal collection and so reflects her particular idiosyncratic tastes rather than any general unifying theme.

Since Peggy Guggenheim was married to a major 20th century artist, it is hardly surprising that her collection should contain numerous works by his friends and contemporaries such as Picasso, Dali, and Pollock.

 "Angel of the City" by Marino Marini, Peggy Guggenheim Museum, Venice

The best known exhibit is probably the "Bird in Space" sculpted as part of a series by Constantin Brancusi in 1923. However, the most notorious is undoubtedly the “Angel of the City”, a statue of a naked man riding a horse in a state of arousal,  which is located at the main entrance in full view of the Grand Canal.

Marino Marini, who completed the statue in 1948, was ordered  to use a detachable penis which could be removed to spare the blushes of young ladies This detachable penis has now been welded in place in order to prevent its theft.

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