Venice - Venier House of the Lions and Peggy Guggenheim Collection

(Local Name: Ca' Venier dei Leoni e Collezione Peggy Guggenheim) The palace, only a few steps away from the Church of Santa Maria della Salute and the Palazzo Corner della Ca' Grande, was begun in 1749. It was never completed, however, and has only one floor. The aristocratic Venier family are said to have kept lions in the sleepy garden - hence the appellation "dei Leoni" (of the Lions).

The American Peggy Guggenheim (1884-1979) opened a museum of contemporary art in London in 1939, and in 1942 the "Art of the Century" Gallery in New York from which her private Venetian collection of cubist, abstract and surrealist paintings is derived. In 1948 Peggy Guggenheim first exhibited her collection at the Bienniale in Venice. Shortly afterwards the ca' Venier dei Leoni became her new residence and here she opened her collection to the public. Today the collection belongs to the Salomon R. Guggenheim foundation in New York set up by Peggy's uncle, but with the proviso that the works of art should remain as a museum in Venice. The collection includes works by Max Ernst, to whom Peggy Guggenheim was married ("The Kiss", 1927), Pablo Picasso ("On the Beach", 1937), Georges Braques ("Clarinet", 1912), Fernard Leger ("City People", 1919), Jean Metzinger ("Cycle Track", ca. 1914), Joan Miro ("Dutch Interior II", 1928), Salvador Dali ("The Birth of Liquid Desires", 1931/2), Paul Klee ("Portrait of Mrs. P in the South", 1924), Rene Magritte ("The Voice of Space", 1931), Alberto Giacometti ("Woman on Foot", 1932), Constantin Brancusi ("Maiastra", ca. 1912), Piet Mondrian ("Composition", 1938/9), Marc Chagall ("Rain", 1911), and Jackson Pollock ("Moonwoman", 1942). On the terrace looking on to the Canal Grande stands Marino Marini's equestrian statue "Angel of the City" (1948).