The Hofkirche in Dresden with the Castle and the Augustus Bridge

In 1697 Augustus the Strong, Elector of Saxony, became a Catholic so that he could be elected King of Poland. His subjects in Saxony, the heartland of the Lutheran Reformation, stayed Protestant. The court needed a church of its own faith, and in 1739 his son Augustus III had the Roman architect Gaetano Chiaveri begin the Hofkirche, the Catholic court church at the heart of this view from the left bank of the Elbe. Bellotto painted it in 1748, while the building was still going up. In the version he made for the king, now in Dresden, the church looks almost finished. In this one, made for the king's minister Count Brühl, he recorded the work as it actually stood, with scaffolding across the front. Beside the church stands the royal palace, and the Augustus Bridge crosses the river. In the foreground a royal carriage goes by, and people along its way bow their heads or wave a handkerchief.