The Grand Canal from the Ponte di Rialto

Painted around 1725, this is Venice made for the tourist trade. By the 1720s the city was a required stop on the Grand Tour, the long educational journey wealthy young Europeans, and the British above all, made through Italy, and they wanted a view to carry home. Canaletto supplied it. He set up near the Rialto Bridge and looked down the Grand Canal, and to get the buildings exactly right he worked with a camera obscura, a lens-and-mirror box that projected the scene for him to trace. On the left is the Erberia, the open-air vegetable market, and behind it the long facade Sansovino built in 1555 for the market offices. Canaletto liked this composition enough to paint it more than once. A close cousin of this canvas hangs in the British Royal Collection at Windsor.