St. Paul's Cathedral

Canaletto made his living painting Venice for foreign tourists, above all the English on their Grand Tour. When war closed the roads across Europe in the 1740s and those visitors stopped coming, he did the practical thing and followed his customers home. He arrived in London in 1746 and stayed most of the next nine years. This near view of Saint Paul's dates from about 1754, close to the end of that stay, and was painted for Thomas Hollis, one of his London patrons. The cathedral had often sat far off in his river scenes of the Thames. Only here did he bring it up close, seen from the north-west, with the statue of Queen Anne out front and a low evening sun crossing the square.