View of the Grand Canal toward the Punta della Dogana

The war that broke out in 1740 over the Austrian succession barely touched Venice, and it nearly ruined Canaletto anyway. His customers were young Englishmen on the Grand Tour, and while armies moved around northern Italy they stopped coming. Joseph Smith, the British consul in Venice who acted as his agent, steered him towards etchings, easier to post to London than a canvas, and in 1746 Canaletto followed the market and went to London himself. This view belongs to the years just before that, between 1740 and 1745. It looks down the Grand Canal from Campo San Vio to the Punta della Dogana, a stretch he painted over and over, with earlier versions now in Madrid and in Dresden. Brera bought it in 1828 along with its companion piece, and the two still hang together.