Giovanni Antonio Canal, called Canaletto

Canaletto demonstrates in the present sheet not only his mastery of light, but also his unparalleled dexterity in creating a refined perspectival structure, to suit his ambitious designs. This complex and elaborate capriccio has as its focus a richly ornamented, double-arched, pillared and vaulted portico, through the openings of which can be seen a view onto a walled garden, and beyond that, a church tower. 

Resembling a proscenium, the arched porticos to the right and left lead towards the central ornamental colonnade, which is surmounted by a coat of arms bearing a chevron, tucked underneath a canopy that is itself inserted just below an architectural pediment, with sculpted figures. 

Around the top of the entire structure, a balustrade completes the architecture, the onlookers that lean over it set against the scudding clouds of the sky, which are ingeniously executed only in wash, in contrast to the masterly use of pen and ink that we see throughout the rest of this elaborate composition. Several figures of men, women and children animate the scene in the courtyard, along with three dogs, one seated - such a familiar motif in Canaletto's drawings and paintings alike. A number of statues, placed below the two arched porticos, add yet more variety to the scene. 

The composition is strongly lit from the left, creating a captivating contrast between the two sides of the drawing and enlivening still further the perfected and detailed design, in which the dramatic skills that Canaletto must have learned early in life from his father, a theatrical set-designer, are greatly in evidence.

The technique employed by Canaletto in this sheet is extremely rich and varied. Much of the design is defined in some detail with the pen, using a subtle golden shade of brown ink, but the artist has also employed vertical, horizontal and diagonal perspective lines, faintly laid down in black chalk with the aid of a ruler, to help define the complex architecture and the different planes. The abundant gray wash adds a vibrant touch to the entire composition.

Though this drawing is not closely comparable in conception to any of Canaletto's other capricci, it is not entirely dissimilar to one in the Albertina, Vienna, Capriccio: a garden seen from a baroque vestibule, which is slightly larger, but executed in the same combination of media.¹  An engraving by Giovanni Battista Brustolon, related to the Albertina sheet, is, as Constable and Links have noted, numbered N3 suggesting that it is one of a series.² Though not numbered in the same way, and engraved by a different artist (Jacobus Monaco), an undated print that follows exactly the present drawing was published by Ludovico Furlanetto (1766-1777), and may originally have formed part of the same or another series of prints after Canaletto's works of this type. 

1. Vienna, Albertina, inv. no. 1921; see Constable and Links, op. cit., vol. II, pp. 609-610, no. 826, reproduced vol. I, pl. 156, fig. 828

2. Loc. cit.