Il Molo davanti a Palazzo Ducale a Venezia

Around 1730 almost everything Canaletto painted left Venice. British travellers on the Grand Tour wanted a view to take home, and Joseph Smith, an English merchant living in the city, acted as his agent and cleared the studio. What they were buying was a working waterfront. The Molo was the main landing place in front of the Doge's Palace, and moored along it here is the Fusta, the state galley that guarded the palace and was rowed by convicts. Past it the eye runs to the two granite columns of the Piazzetta, the Mint, the grain stores, and the mouth of the Grand Canal with Santa Maria della Salute beyond. Berlin bought the picture from a dealer in 1907.