Piazza San Marco Looking East towards the Basilica
by CANALETTO, Oil on canvas, 59 x 92 cm
The Piazza San Marco in Venice, with the Basilica di San Marco and the famous Campanile has always been recognised as one of the most famous of all European settings, and has come to occupy a central place in the work of Canaletto, the city’s most famous view painter. The number of variants of this view that Canaletto painted throughout his career is evidence of the popularity that it enjoyed with eighteenth-century visitors to Venice.