Attributed to Giovanni Antonio Canal, called Canaletto

The colours of the original are a touch less pink than they appear in the catalogue illustration. The canvas has been relined. The paint surface is secure and in fairly good condition under a somewhat yellowed varnish. Inspection under UV lights reveals scattered old retouchings throughout, most notably in darks of the lower left hand corner, along the four margins and some minor infilling to old craquelure lines in the sky upper left. Offered unframed.
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This unusual capriccio of the Venetian lagoon is datable to Canaletto's maturity, after he had returned to Venice from England. Though the painting has not, to our knowledge, been published by scholars, the design was already known through a drawing by Canaletto in the Victoria and Albert Museum, inv. no. C.A.I. 423 (see fig. 1). A print of the composition in reverse (see fig. 2) entitled Città superbe il vostro fasto abborro was made by Fabio Berardi (1728-1788). Constable was the first to mention that the composition of these works must have been based on a painted lost original since he notes that there are clear differences in design between the drawing and the print.¹  The differences suggest that the print is after the present painting, and not based on the drawing, as the inscription on the print suggests.²  The drawing would thus have been executed as a preparatoy work for the painting. Compared to the drawing the perspective in the print is sharper and the chiaroscuro intensified; the shrine in the foreground is replaced by a bridge; the lantern on the church is omitted, as well as the lagoon; the church in the distance is different, while a tower and other buildings are introduced.


1.  See W.G. Constable, Canaletto, Oxford 1976, vol. II, p. 602, cat. no. 805, the drawing is reproduced vol. I, plate 152. Another less finished drawing, probably preparatory for the London drawing is in the Schloßmuseum, Weimar; see J.G. Links, A Supplement to W.G. Constable's Canaletto, London 1997, p. 53, cat. no. 805*.
2.  The print is inscribed: Anto. Canaletto Pinx. Berardi Scul. appo Wagner Ven CPES.