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People walk, sit, or stand on a plaza along a canal lined on the far side with buildings in this horizontal landscape painting. The canal begins in the lower left corner and angles slightly right as it travels to the horizon, which comes about a third of the way up this composition. One, two, three, or four-story buildings line the canal to the left into the far distance. Arched doorways give direct access to the water, and one person leans out an upper-story window. The buildings are reflected in the gently rippling water, which is painted in shades of olive green. A stepped bridge crosses the canal in the near distance, and two gondoliers guide a long, narrow boat to a platform alongside the plaza in the bottom left corner of the composition. People walk or stand singly or in pairs on the plaza in the bottom right quadrant of the painting. The women wear dresses with long skirts and head coverings in shades of black, white, yellow, or pale pink. The men wear hats, jackets, capes, stockings, and slacks in shades of peanut brown, muted yellow, red, blue, or white. The people all appear to have pale, peachy skin. A statue of a man riding a horse rests on a towering platform in a grassy patch to our right. Beyond it is the blocky form of a red brick church. One man in a pair standing on the plaza gestures toward the entrance with a walking stick and others approach the central entrance. Sunlight streams across the scene from the upper right, throwing the church façade into shadow and casting a deep shadow across the face of another building that encloses the far side of the plaza. That second building has arched windows and doors, statues lining the roofline, and a winged lion over the entrance. A fat cloud trundles across a mostly empty vibrant blue sky above.

Bernardo Bellotto

The Campo di SS. Giovanni e Paolo, Venice, 1743/1747

West Building, Main Floor — Gallery 31

Medium

oil on canvas

Dimensions

overall: 70.8 x 111 cm (27 7/8 x 43 11/16 in.)

Credit Line

Widener Collection

Accession Number

1942.9.7

Artists / Makers

Bernardo Bellotto (painter) Venetian, 1722 - 1780

Image Use

This image is in the public domain.
Read our full Open Access policy for images .

Provenance

Hon. Marmaduke Constable-Maxwell [1806-1872], Terregles, Dumfriesshire (sale, Christie's, London, 1 March 1873, no. 132);[1] purchased by William Ward, 1st earl of Dudley [1817-1885, created earl 1860], Dudley House, London; (sale, Christie's, London, 25 June 1892, no. 51);[2] purchased by (Agnew's, London);[3] sold later the same year to Peter A.B. Widener, Lynnewood Hall, Elkins Park, Pennsylvania; inheritance from Estate of Peter A.B. Widener by gift through power of appointment of Joseph E. Widener, Elkins Park, Pennsylvania; gift 1942 to NGA.

[1] Described in the sale catalogue as "From the collections of Mr. Wakeman and Lord Exeter" and accompanied by lot 133, "The Piazza San Marco, Venice, with numerous figures the companion." The latter painting was purchased by Agnew's, London, sold later the same year to Kirkman Hodgson, M.P., and remains untraced.

[2] Reitlinger (Reitlinger, Gerald, The Economics of Taste: The Rise and Fall of Picture Prices 1760-1960, London, 1961: 225) commented that the price paid for the painting by the earl of Dudley, £3,360, was enormous for the time.

[3] The painting was purchased from Agnew's by John G. Johnson, either buying for Widener or for himself and selling it to Widener shortly afterward (information from Agnew's via The Getty Provenance Index).

Associated Names

Agnew & Sons, Ltd., Thomas
Christie, Manson & Woods, Ltd.
Christie, Manson & Woods, Ltd.
Constable-Maxwell, Marmaduke, Hon.
Ward, 1st earl of Dudley, William
Widener, Joseph E.
Widener, Peter Arrell Brown

Exhibition History

1938: Tiepolo and His Contemporaries, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1938, no. 22, repro., as Campo di Santi Giovanni e Paolo.

2010: Venice: Canaletto and His Rivals, The National Gallery, London; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 2010-2011, no. 49, repro. (shown only in Washington).

Technical Summary

The support is a coarse, open plain-weave fabric of irregular thread size and weave that was lined at an unknown date prior to acquisition. The ground is a medium-thick red layer upon which a thinner, pale yellow layer has been applied. The paint is a rich vehicular paste applied more thinly in the lights than in the darks. The brilliant blue sky was laid in first, and then clearly defined clouds were applied in heavier impasto. Next the architecture and foreground were painted with smaller brushes; broad darks and lights were laid in first and modified with halftones applied with little blending. Mechanical aids were used to incise guidelines for the architecture and perspective and the medallions on the base of the Colleoni monument. Linear details of the buildings in sunlight were incised with a straight edge into the wet paint, revealing the pale yellow layer beneath. Linear details in the shadows were painted in black with an extremely fine brush. The figures, boats, and other details in the foreground were applied upon the completed understructure.

Dark, foreboding clouds in the center of the composition originally imparted a different mood to the scene. The artist evidently changed his mind during the painting process and applied a light blue layer of sky over the dark clouds, traces of which appear on top of the clouds and be low the edges of the architecture. This light blue layer was partially removed during an early treatment, although the restorer, apparently realizing his mistake, subsequently overpainted most of the sky, including the exposed dark clouds and the large white cloud just above it. This layer of paint is insoluble to some degree, and remnants of nonoriginal paint remain throughout the sky in the crevices of the surface texture.

The original tacking margins have been removed, but the cusping along all four edges suggests that the painting approximates its original dimensions. The foreground and architecture are in good condition with minor abrasion of the uppermost paint layer that has affected the dark glazes in particular. Inpainting of the sky is extensive owing to the severe abrasion and a large oval loss at the center. Discolored varnish and overpaint were removed in a treatment begun in 1983-1984 by Jia-sun Tsang. The picture was inpainted and the treatment completed by Susanna P. Griswold in 1993.

Bibliography

1892: "Inventory of Paintings. P.A.B. Widener." Manuscript, Gallery Archives, National Gallery of Art, 1892: no. 5, as by Canaletto.

1908: "P.A.B. Widener Collection, February 1st, 1908." Typescript, 2 vols., Library, National Gallery of Art, 1908: 133, 174, repro., as by Canaletto.

1916: Berenson, Bernard, and William Roberts. Pictures in the Collection of P.A.B. Widener at Lynnewood Hall, Elkins Park, Pennsylvania: Early Italian and Spanish Schools. Philadelphia, 1916: unpaginated, repro., as A View in Venice by Canaletto.

1923: Paintings in the Collection of Joseph Widener at Lynnewood Hall. Intro. by Wilhelm R. Valentiner. Elkins Park, Pennsylvania, 1923: unpaginated, repro., as A View in Venice by Canaletto.

1926: Marillier, H. C. Christie's 1766 to 1925. London, 1926: 66, 67.

1931: Paintings in the Collection of Joseph Widener at Lynnewood Hall. Intro. by Wilhelm R. Valentiner. Elkins Park, Pennsylvania, 1931: 224, repro., as A View in Venice by Canaletto.

1938: Frankfurter, Alfred M. "Tiepolo comes to New York: The XVIII Century Venetians at the Metropolitan." Art News 36 (12 March): 23-24, as by Canaletto.

1938: Williams, Jr., Hermann W. "Tiepolo and His Contemporaries." The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 33 (1938): 65, repro. 63, as by Canaletto.

1942: Works of Art from the Widener Collection. Foreword by David Finley and John Walker. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1942: 5.

1948: Paintings and Sculpture from the Widener Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1948 (reprinted 1959): 26, repro., as View in Venice by Canaletto.

1948: Parker, Karl T. The Drawings of Antonio Canaletto in the Collection of His Majesty the King at Windsor Castle. London, 1948: 37, no. 40, as by Canaletto.

1951: Einstein, Lewis. Looking at Italian Pictures in the National Gallery of Art. Washington, 1951: 108-113, repro., as by Canaletto.

1957: Shapley, Fern Rusk. Comparisons in Art: A Companion to the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. London, 1957 (reprinted 1959): pl. 158, as View in Venice by Canaletto.

1960: Shapley, Fern Rusk. Later Italian Painting in the National Gallery of Art. Washington, D.C., 1960 (Booklet Number Six in Ten Schools of Painting in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.): 38, color repro., as View in Venice by Canaletto.

1960: The National Gallery of Art and Its Collections. Foreword by Perry B. Cott and notes by Otto Stelzer. National Gallery of Art, Washington (undated, 1960s): 6, as View of Venice by Canaletto.

1962: Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds. Treasures from the National Gallery of Art. New York, 1962: 48, color repro., as View in Venice by Canaletto.

1962: Constable, William George. Canaletto: Giovanni Antonio Canal, 1697-1768. 2 vols. Oxford, 1962: 2:318-319, no. 307, as by Canaletto.

1965: Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 22, as View in Venice by Canaletto.

1966: Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds. A Pageant of Painting from the National Gallery of Art. 2 vols. New York, 1966: 2:330, color repro., as View in Venice, by Canaletto

1967: Pignatti, Terisio. "Bernardo Bellotto's Venetian Period (1738-1743)." The National Gallery of Canada Bulletin 9-10 (1967): 1.

1968: National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 15, repro., as View in Venice, by Canaletto

1968: Puppi, Lionello. The Complete Paintings of Canaletto. Milan, 1968: 101, repro., no. 110B, as by Canaletto.

1972: Fredericksen, Burton B., and Federico Zeri. Census of Pre-Nineteenth Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections. Cambridge, Mass., 1972: 43, as by Canaletto.

1972: Kozakiewicz, Stefan. Bernardo Bellotto. Translated by Mary Whittal. 2 vols. Greenwich, Connecticut, 1972: 2:449, no. Z 256, as possibly by Canaletto with assistance from Bellotto.

1974: Camesasca, Ettore. L'opera completa del Bellotto. Milan, 1974: 88, no. 5 A.

1975: European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 52, repro., as View in Venice by Canaletto.

1976: Constable and Links 1976, 1:pl. 202; 2:339-340, no. 307, as by Canaletto.

1979: Shapley, Fern Rusk. Catalogue of the Italian Paintings. 2 vols. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1979: 1:99-101; 2:pl. 67, as View in Venice by Canaletto.

1979: Watson, Ross. The National Gallery of Art, Washington. New York, 1979: 83, pl. 71.

1984: Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 346, no. 479, color repro., as View in Venice by Canaletto.

1985: Corboz, André. Canaletto: Una Venezia immaginaria. Catalogue compiled by Anna Tortorelo. 2 vols. Milan, 1985: 2:631, repro., no. P 221, as by Canaletto.

1985: European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 71, repro., as View in Venice by Canaletto.

1989: Constable, W. G. Canaletto: Giovanni Antonio Canal, 1697-1765. 2nd ed. revised by J. G. Links, reissued with supplement and additional plates. 2 vols. Oxford, 1989: 1:pl. 202; 2:339-340, no. 307, as by Canaletto.

1996: De Grazia, Diane, and Eric Garberson, with Edgar Peters Bowron, Peter M. Lukehart, and Mitchell Merling. Italian Paintings of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1996: 9-14, color repro. 11.

2004: Hand, John Oliver. National Gallery of Art: Master Paintings from the Collection. Washington and New York, 2004: 238, no. 188, color repro.