Bridge of Sighs, Ducal Palace and Custom House, Venice: Canaletto painting

Turner exhibited this in 1833, more than a decade after he first saw Venice, and it was the first of the Venice oil paintings he would keep making for the rest of his life. The title tells you the game he is playing. Down in the left foreground sits Canaletto, the great 18th-century painter of Venice, shown at his easel. Turner is measuring himself directly against the artist most associated with these exact views of the Ducal Palace and the water. He also had a living rival in mind, his friend Clarkson Stanfield, who was painting Venice too. He worked it on a mahogany panel rather than canvas, and filled the lagoon with a bright, hazy light very unlike Canaletto's crisp daylight.