London: Westminster Abbey, with a Procession of Knights of the Bath

On 26 June 1749 the newly installed Knights of the Bath walked in procession from Westminster Abbey to the House of Lords, and Canaletto painted the day. He was a Venetian, in London by then for about three years, selling English patrons the same crisp, sunlit clarity he had made famous painting the canals of his own city. What lifts this above a simple pageant is the building behind the knights. The Abbey's two western towers had been completed only in 1745, four years earlier, and this is the earliest known picture to show them. The knights cross the open square in red and white robes, watched by small figures crowding the balconies above.