If you visit London’s National Gallery’s Room 38 you will see a fine collection of paintings by Canaletto (Giovanni Antonio Canal, 1697-1768), the Italian artist famed for his vedute of Venice (a veduta is a highly detailed, usually large-scale painting or print of a cityscape or some other vista). He was born in Venice, the son of another painter, Bernardo Canal, hence his mononym Canaletto, or “little Canal” (and nothing to do with the Venetian canals that he later depicted). Canaletto was apprenticed to his father whose main career was in theatre set design, so he got to work on painting theatrical scenes for operas by the likes of Vivaldi, Scarlatti and others. However, it was when, in around 1723, he began to paint the daily life of Venice and its people, that he found his true calling.

Canaletto sold many of his grand scenes of the canals of Venice and the Doge’s Palace to Englishmen on their Grand Tour, and his career really took off when he began his association with Joseph Smith, an English businessman and collector living in Venice who was to become British Consul in Venice in 1744. Smith became the artist’s principal agent and patron, and was instrumental in introducing Grand Tourists to his work and arranging commissions. He also acquired nearly fifty paintings and one hundred fifty drawings from Canaletto, the largest and finest single group of the artist’s works, which he sold to King George III in 1762.

In the 1740s, the War of the Austrian Succession led to a reduction in the number of British visitors to Venice (war can do that) and thus disrupted Canaletto’s market, and so in 1746 he moved to London, living in London’s Soho district and successfully producing views of London and of his patrons’ houses and castles. He remained in England until 1755 and returned to Venice where he continued to paint until his death in 1768. His connection with Britain had been sealed, however, and now you can find his paintings not only in the National Gallery but in Buckingham Palace, the Wallace Collection and indeed there’s a fine set of 24 in the dining room at Woburn Abbey.

Here is just one from the Royal Collection, The Mouth of the Grand Canal looking West towards the Carità (1729-30), and then a view of the exquisite Woburn Abbey dining room.