Canaletto

Rococo painter Giovanni Antonio Canal, known as Canaletto (1697-1768), became Venice's most celebrated view painter through his precisely rendered vedute of the city. Born to a theatrical scene painter, he learned perspective and stagecraft from his father before traveling to Rome in 1719, where Giovanni Paolo Pannini's topographical paintings inspired him to abandon theater for cityscapes. Returning to Venice, he developed a luminous style that captured the republic's canals, palaces, and ceremonies with almost photographic clarity.

Canaletto worked outdoors making pencil sketches, possibly aided by a camera obscura, then refined compositions in his studio. His paintings attracted British collectors on the Grand Tour, and the English merchant Joseph Smith became his agent, commissioning dozens of works eventually sold to George III. When the War of Austrian Succession reduced tourism, Canaletto moved to London in 1746, spending nearly a decade painting Thames views and English country houses. He returned to Venice in 1755, was elected to the Venetian Academy in 1763, and continued painting until his death. His nephew Bernardo Bellotto and pupil Francesco Guardi carried on the veduta tradition. Today the Royal Collection holds the world's largest group of his works. Major paintings also hang at the National Gallery London, the Wallace Collection, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.