William James active 1730-1780

This view of the Grand Canal in Venice gracefully portrays the entrance to the Cannaregio, spanned by the Ponte delle Guglie, decorated with the four obelisks for which it was named. On the left is the church and campanile of San Geremia.

This view is attributed to William James, “one of the most elusive figures in eighteenth-century English painting.”¹  Only one painting, a copy of Canaletto’s View of the Monument, London, is signed and dated (W. James. 1759), and based upon this secure point of reference, a large number of English and Venetian views have been attributed to him. Recently, the concept of William James as the artist of this group of paintings, which were all clearly painted in England in the 18th century, has been questioned. Nevertheless an entire body of work has been attributed to him, some of which does appear to by a consistent hand, tradtionally identified as William James.   The paintings most commonly attributed to this mysterious artist are London city  and Venetian views as well as English landscapes, though he also exhibited some landscapes including Egyptian antiquities in the Royal Academy in 1769 and 1770.

Though his personal details are somewhat unknown and enigmatic, the work of William James clearly and skillfully follows in Canaletto’s tradition of topographical precision and dramatic contrast between light and dark. The inspiration he found in the great Italian vedutista is especially evident in this painting, which draws heavily from an existing composition by Canaletto, now in the collection of Her Royal Majesty the Queen at Windsor.²   

1  Canaletto & England, exhibition catalogue, London 1993, p. 130. 

2 see W. G. Constable, Canaletto, ed. J. G. Links, Oxford 1989 pp.311-312, no. 251, illus.