Circle of Bernardo Bellotto (Venice 1721-1780 Warsaw)

The view down the Grand Canal from the Campo di San Vio was understandably popular with Canaletto’s patrons. This picture depends most closely on the picture from the series supplied in the 1730s to Charles, 3rd Duke of Marlborough, for Langley Park, Buckinghamshire (W.G. Constable, Canaletto, Giovanni Antonio Canal, 1697-1768, Oxford, 1976, and subsequent editions, no. 188), corresponding with this in the treatment of the lower windows of the Casa Barbarigo, on the right of the composition. After it surfaced in 1995, J.G. Links published it, suggesting that 'it originated in Canaletto’s studio’. Subsequently, Professore Succi advanced an attribution to the young Bernardo Bellotto. Like the young Bellotto the artist clearly had immediate access to pictures by Canaletto prior to their despatch to his foreign clients.