A View of Greenwich from the River

Canaletto came to London in 1746 because his customers had stopped coming to him. The War of the Austrian Succession had made travelling across Europe difficult for years, and the British gentlemen whose Grand Tours kept his Venice studio busy were staying home, so he followed them north. London greeted him with a rumour that he was an impostor trading on the name, helped along by his nephew Bernardo Bellotto, who was touring Europe signing himself Canaletto too. In 1749 he answered it with a newspaper advertisement inviting any gentleman to call at his lodgings off Golden Square and inspect a view he had just finished. In the early 1750s he gave Greenwich the treatment he had been giving the Grand Canal. The long river front is Christopher Wren's Royal Hospital for Seamen, and it was in use while he painted it, housing old and disabled sailors.