The Palazzo Contarini Corfu located on the corner of the Grand Canal and Rio di San Trovaso, follows this traditional Venetian architecture. It is the subject of one of Leighton’s sketches: ‘proprement dits’. The drawing, belonging to the Victoria and Albert Museum’s collection (reference number E3806-1910), offers a view of this “double palace” from behind, probably drawn from the back of the Russian Embassy on the other side of the secondary canal. The section that Leighton has drawn is typical of a 15th century palace. The ground floor has the segment-arch windows, while the first floor has the decorative multiple height windows already discussed. In 1610, Vincenzo Scamozzi was commissioned to build an extension that would enlarge the Palazzo Contarini Corfu. This new palazzo was named the Palazzo Contarini degli Scrigni.
It is interesting to note that almost the exact same view was also drawn by Andrew Fisher Bunner (1841-1897), an American artist contemporary to Leighton. The ink and graphite drawing produced in 1885 is located in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. This drawing is titled ‘Palazzo Contarini degli Scrigni’ which highlights the confusion between the names of the ‘double palace’.
What brought both artists to the Palazzo Contarini Corfu was perhaps the fact that, from 1855 to 1887, this palace was the English church in Venice. It was established by John Davies Mereweather, an English chaplain originally from Bristol, who lived there until his retirement in 1887. For this entire period, as there was no dedicated building for an English church in the city, Mereweather held services in this palace that he called home. The thought of an English church established in a decorative palazzo on the Grand Canal of Venice might have appealed to the curiosity of visitors, whether religious or not.
This palazzo architecture also influenced Leighton when he came to build his own home in Kensington, London. Indeed, as discussed in the Leighton House Museum guidebook,] he adapted the Venice palace courtyard structure to the staircase hall in his house. The design, that incorporates the typical internal courtyard, staircase to the first floor, and even a copper urn to symbolise the well head, is deeply inspired by the design of both the Palazzo Centani and the Palazzo Soranzo van Axel. But it is also the functionality, and not only the architecture, that presents a striking resemblance.