Capriccio with Classical Arch and Goats

Look for the goats. They graze in the foreground beneath a broken classical arch, and they are the sign that this is a capriccio rather than a true view of Venice, an imagined scene assembled from ruins, dense foliage and a hazy distance. Marieschi painted it around 1741, at the height of his short working life, with the quick flickering touch that later made his canvases easy to mistake for other Venetian hands. It was made as one of a pair and still hangs beside its companion, a second capriccio of the same size built instead around a Gothic tower and an obelisk.