The Grand Canal near the Rialto, Looking North

Canaletto painted this view in 1725 for Stefano Conti, a cloth merchant from Lucca, and he put a building site into it. On the left bank of the Grand Canal a palace stands wrapped in scaffolding. It is the new house of the Corner della Regina family, rebuilt from 1724 on the site of their old one, and the gallery reads its presence here as Canaletto working as a chronicler of the city around him. The gallery also points to a liberty he took. From one spot near the Rialto nobody could see both banks opening out this widely, so he joined two angles of view in a single picture and let clarity win over strict accuracy. The palace was finished a few years later, and in the later 1730s Tiepolo painted a large canvas for its main hall. A strip of that canvas, the soldier with a halberd, hangs in this same collection.