Portrait of Giovanni Antonio Canal Canaletto Giovanni Antonio Canal Canaletto

Giovanni Antonio Canal Canaletto Painting Reproductions 13 of 13

1697-1768

Italian Rococo Painter

Giovanni Antonio Canal, born in Venice on 18 October 1697, matured in a republic that floated both on water and on spectacle. From the beginning his identity derived from craft: he was the son of Bernardo Canal, a respected scenographer, and the diminutive Canaletto suited a painter who would make the city itself his theatre. The lagoon offered an ever-shifting stage of stone and reflection - a subject demanding sharp observation rather than easy lyricism - and the young artist spent his career refining that gaze.

He served first behind the scenes, learning to build worlds for opera. The painted flats of devotional or mythic Rome taught him a rigorous command of perspective, but it was a visit to the actual city in 1719-20 that reoriented his ambition. There he encountered Giovanni Paolo Pannini’s vedute, and understood that the street, not the stage, held the richest drama. On returning home he abandoned scenery for canvases, translating theatrical illusion into urban fact, yet always allowing architecture to retain its sense of performance.

The early 1720s brought a decisive shift. Instead of finishing pictures in the studio, Canaletto worked directly before the motif, noting the fugitive brilliance of Adriatic light. The practice was adventurous for its day and sparked rumours that he relied on a camera obscura. Whether that optical box served as aide-mémoire or mere curiosity, the stronger truth lies in his draughtsmanship: the geometry is disciplined, but surfaces shimmer with the instability of water, crowds, and atmosphere. Reality and reverie interlock - a balance that would become his signature.

Patronage soon followed. Owen Swiny and then the English consul Joseph Smith recognised that Canaletto’s Venice could satisfy the Grand Tourist’s longing for both documentary record and aesthetic refinement. Smith’s townhouse became a showroom; British collectors commissioned canvases small enough to travel yet expansive in illusion. When war in the 1740s closed continental routes and the flow of visitors dwindled, Canaletto moved the studio rather than the market, sailing for London in 1746.

England required a recalibration of vision. The painter lodged in Soho, surveying a capital still unsure of its own grandeur. His drawings of Westminster Bridge, then newly completed, reveal a careful negotiation between topographic fidelity and atmospheric embroidery. Some viewers found the results mechanical; a whisper even circulated that an impostor wielded the brush. Canaletto’s rejoinder was public: he invited gentlemen to inspect a freshly painted view of St James’s Park, asserting authenticity by means of openness. Yet the very charge of repetitiveness underscores how fully he had distilled a format that others now mimicked.

Returning to Venice in 1755, he was welcomed into the Accademia and, as prior of the painters’ guild, presided over a city increasingly conscious of its own nostalgia. Late works often revisit earlier sketches, but they are not mere reprises. Subtle dislocations of scale, unexpected cloud shadows, and occasional capricci suggest a mature imagination still interrogating the city’s precarious equilibrium between ceremony and decline. The paint films grow thinner, the light cooler, as though acknowledging that spectacle, once steady, had begun to flicker.

Canaletto died on 19 April 1768 and was buried in San Lio, the parish of his baptism. His influence, however, radiated far beyond the parish and the century. Pupils such as Bernardo Bellotto and Francesco Guardi adapted his analytical clarity to their own ends, while collectors from Catherine II to George III competed for his canvases. The purchase of Consul Smith’s holdings by the British crown in 1762 consolidated a royal taste for urban portraiture that still shapes national collections. If later movements praised spontaneity over structure, they nonetheless inherited from Canaletto a conviction that the modern city is a subject worthy of sustained, exacting vision - a stage where the everyday may, through watchful painting, achieve quiet permanence.

311 Canaletto Paintings

Venice: Santa Maria della Salute, n.d. by Canaletto | Painting Reproduction

Venice: Santa Maria della Salute n.d.

Oil Painting
$5194
Canvas Print
$55.67
SKU: CAN-17294
Giovanni Antonio Canal Canaletto
Original Size: 47.6 x 79.4 cm
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA

Piazza San Marco, c.1727/29 by Canaletto | Painting Reproduction

Piazza San Marco c.1727/29

Oil Painting
$9551
Canvas Print
$55.67
SKU: CAN-17334
Giovanni Antonio Canal Canaletto
Original Size: 68.6 x 112.4 cm
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA

A Lock, a Column, and a Church beside a Lagoon, c.1740/45 by Canaletto | Painting Reproduction

A Lock, a Column, and a Church beside a Lagoon c.1740/45

Oil Painting
$2977
Canvas Print
$62.44
SKU: CAN-17335
Giovanni Antonio Canal Canaletto
Original Size: 50.8 x 67.6 cm
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA

Warwick Castle, 1748 by Canaletto | Painting Reproduction

Warwick Castle 1748

Oil Painting
$3514
Canvas Print
$55.67
SKU: CAN-17336
Giovanni Antonio Canal Canaletto
Original Size: 43 x 71.8 cm
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA

Campo Sant'Angelo, Venice, c.1730/40 by Canaletto | Painting Reproduction

Campo Sant'Angelo, Venice c.1730/40

Oil Painting
$4619
Canvas Print
$55.67
SKU: CAN-17337
Giovanni Antonio Canal Canaletto
Original Size: 46.7 x 77.5 cm
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA

The Grand Canal, Venice, Looking South toward the ..., c.1730/40 by Canaletto | Painting Reproduction

The Grand Canal, Venice, Looking South toward the ... c.1730/40

Oil Painting
$5167
Canvas Print
$55.67
SKU: CAN-17338
Giovanni Antonio Canal Canaletto
Original Size: 46.4 x 77.5 cm
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA

The Grand Canal, Venice, Looking Southeast, with ..., c.1730/40 by Canaletto | Painting Reproduction

The Grand Canal, Venice, Looking Southeast, with ... c.1730/40

Oil Painting
$5028
Canvas Print
$55.67
SKU: CAN-17339
Giovanni Antonio Canal Canaletto
Original Size: 47 x 77.8 cm
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA

Campo Santa Maria Zobenigo, Venice, c.1730/40 by Canaletto | Painting Reproduction

Campo Santa Maria Zobenigo, Venice c.1730/40

Oil Painting
$4858
Canvas Print
$55.67
SKU: CAN-17340
Giovanni Antonio Canal Canaletto
Original Size: 47 x 78 cm
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA

Imaginary View with a Tomb by the Lagoon, c.1740/45 by Canaletto | Painting Reproduction

Imaginary View with a Tomb by the Lagoon c.1740/45

Oil Painting
$1976
Canvas Print
$55.67
SKU: CAN-17341
Giovanni Antonio Canal Canaletto
Original Size: 30.2 x 39.4 cm
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA

Imaginary View of Venice, 1741 by Canaletto | Painting Reproduction

Imaginary View of Venice 1741

Paper Art Print
$53.14
SKU: CAN-17342
Giovanni Antonio Canal Canaletto
Original Size: 30 x 43.7 cm
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA

Le porte del Dolo, c1735/46 by Canaletto | Painting Reproduction

Le porte del Dolo c1735/46

Paper Art Print
$53.14
SKU: CAN-17343
Giovanni Antonio Canal Canaletto
Original Size: 32 x 45.5 cm
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA

Capriccio with a Roman Triumphal Arch, c.1720/30 by Canaletto | Painting Reproduction

Capriccio with a Roman Triumphal Arch c.1720/30

Paper Art Print
$54.63
SKU: CAN-17344
Giovanni Antonio Canal Canaletto
Original Size: 38 x 54 cm
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA

Warwick Castle, c.1748/1749 by Canaletto | Painting Reproduction

Warwick Castle c.1748/1749

Oil Painting
$4343
Canvas Print
$55.67
SKU: CAN-17531
Giovanni Antonio Canal Canaletto
Original Size: 72.4 x 120 cm
Yale Center for British Art, Connecticut, USA

Old Walton Bridge, 1755 by Canaletto | Painting Reproduction

Old Walton Bridge 1755

Oil Painting
$5465
Canvas Print
$55.67
SKU: CAN-17532
Giovanni Antonio Canal Canaletto
Original Size: 46 x 122.2 cm
Yale Center for British Art, Connecticut, USA

English Landscape Capriccio with a Palace, c.1754 by Canaletto | Painting Reproduction

English Landscape Capriccio with a Palace c.1754

Oil Painting
$3575
Canvas Print
$67.81
SKU: CAN-17729
Giovanni Antonio Canal Canaletto
Original Size: 134 x 108.8 cm
National Gallery of Art, Washington, USA

The Porta Portello, Padua, c.1741/42 by Canaletto | Painting Reproduction

The Porta Portello, Padua c.1741/42

Oil Painting
$3618
Canvas Print
$55.67
SKU: CAN-17730
Giovanni Antonio Canal Canaletto
Original Size: 62 x 109 cm
National Gallery of Art, Washington, USA

Entrance to the Grand Canal and Santa Maria della ..., c.1735/40 by Canaletto | Painting Reproduction

Entrance to the Grand Canal and Santa Maria della ... c.1735/40

Oil Painting
$4896
Canvas Print
$65.20
SKU: CAN-17873
Giovanni Antonio Canal Canaletto
Original Size: 119 x 153 cm
Louvre Museum, Paris, France

Capriccio with Houses on a Staircase, c.1760/65 by Canaletto | Painting Reproduction

Capriccio with Houses on a Staircase c.1760/65

Paper Art Print
$53.14
SKU: CAN-18798
Giovanni Antonio Canal Canaletto
Original Size: 25.1 x 35.4 cm
Gemaldegalerie, Berlin, Germany

The Portico with the Lantern, c.1740/42 by Canaletto | Painting Reproduction

The Portico with the Lantern c.1740/42

Paper Art Print
$53.14
SKU: CAN-18799
Giovanni Antonio Canal Canaletto
Original Size: 29.9 x 42.6 cm
Gemaldegalerie, Berlin, Germany

The Grand Canal in Venice with the Rialto Bridge, 1724 by Canaletto | Painting Reproduction

The Grand Canal in Venice with the Rialto Bridge 1724

Oil Painting
$3669
Canvas Print
$55.67
SKU: CAN-18855
Giovanni Antonio Canal Canaletto
Original Size: 65.5 x 97.5 cm
Gemaldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden, Germany

Piazza San Marco, Venice, c.1732/33 by Canaletto | Painting Reproduction

Piazza San Marco, Venice c.1732/33

Oil Painting
$5069
Canvas Print
$55.67
SKU: CAN-19006
Giovanni Antonio Canal Canaletto
Original Size: 61 x 96.5 cm
Fuji Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan

View of the Palazzo del Quirinale, Rome, c.1750/51 by Canaletto | Painting Reproduction

View of the Palazzo del Quirinale, Rome c.1750/51

Oil Painting
$3251
Canvas Print
$55.67
SKU: CAN-19018
Giovanni Antonio Canal Canaletto
Original Size: 39.5 x 68.5 cm
Fuji Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan

New
The Bucintoro at the pier on Ascension Day, c.1740 by Canaletto | Painting Reproduction

The Bucintoro at the pier on Ascension Day c.1740

Oil Painting
$7929
Canvas Print
$61.98
SKU: CAN-19914
Giovanni Antonio Canal Canaletto
Original Size: 120.5 x 157 cm
Pinacoteca Agnelli, Torino, Italy

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