Vue du pont de Walton

By 1754 Canaletto had been living in England for about eight years. War on the Continent had choked off the flow of Grand Tourists to Venice, the young Englishmen who used to buy his views, so he followed his market to London. Here he turns his Venetian eye on something very English: the new wooden bridge at Walton, on the Thames southwest of the city. Its lattice of timber was the first design of its kind in Britain, only a few years old when he painted it. Canaletto included his patron in the scene, the writer Thomas Hollis, standing with companions on the bank, and put himself into the picture too, seated and sketching. The bridge lasted until 1783, when the rotten timbers were pulled down.