About The Grand Canal, Venice, Looking Southeast, with the Campo della Carità to the Right Canaletto (Giovanni Antonio Canal) Italian Painting
Canaletto made many drawings on site, which he used to assemble views like this one in the studio. Although the bell tower has since fallen, its adjacent church and former convent now house the Galleria dell’Accademia, and this view is approximately the same as that seen from today’s Academia Bridge. The regularized means of depicting the choppy canal water became a signature of Canaletto in the 1730s. This canvas is from a series of twenty view paintings that Canaletto probably painted for Joseph Smith (ca. 1674–1770), British consul in Venice from 1744 to 1760.