Venice: The Doge's Palace and the Riva degli Schiavoni

The broad quay running past the Doge's Palace is the Riva degli Schiavoni, named after the Slavs from Dalmatia who settled along this stretch of Venice. Canaletto painted it in the late 1730s on an ordinary working day, with no ceremony in sight. Sailors idle around the base of the column carrying the winged lion of Saint Mark, while merchants and foreign visitors stand nearby. Further along, Venetians stroll past government officials in black. Boats crowd the water so thickly that you barely see it, among them a single-masted fusta under a striped red and gold awning. The white sail is built from thick paint laid beside thin, almost transparent layers. The canvas came to the National Gallery in 1876, bequeathed by the London collector Wynn Ellis.