The New Market in Dresden from the Moritzstrasse

Count Heinrich von Brühl, chief minister to Augustus III of Saxony, was the most powerful man at the Dresden court after the king, and he built up a picture gallery of his own. When Bellotto painted his great views of the city for the royal collection, Brühl ordered his own set of the same compositions, and this canvas comes from it. The two sets are not twins. Scholars describe the king's pictures as tuned to greys and browns, while Brühl's carry livelier reds and blues. The square is the Neumarkt, the New Market, with the stone dome of the Frauenkirche, completed in 1743, rising over the stalls and the small scenes of daily life below. Bellotto knew Turin before he knew Dresden. In 1745, two years before he arrived at the Saxon court, he painted two views of this city for the King of Sardinia, and both are now in the Galleria Sabauda in the centre of town.