The Grand Canal from the Carità to the Dogana da Mar
ca. 1736–37
Medium
Pen and brown ink, gray wash
Dimensions
9 15/16 x 17 1/16 in. (25.3 x 43.3 cm)
Classification
Drawings
Department
Robert Lehman Collection
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Robert Lehman Collection, 1975
Accession Number
1975.1.305
Tags
Art Historical Context
Behold Bernardo Bellotto's *The Grand Canal from theità to the Dogana Mar* (ca. 1736–37), a captivating pen and brown ink drawing heightened with gray wash, measuring nearly 10 by 17 inches. This intimate yet precise view captures a quintessential slice of Venice: the shimmering Grand Canal framed by the Church of Santa Maria della Car on the left and the stately Dogana da Mar customs house on the right. Created when Bellotto was just in early twenties, it showcases the young artist's budding genius as nephew and protégé of the master vedutista Canaletto. Bellotto's technique—fine pen lines f...
About the Artist
Bernardo Bellotto · 1722–1780
Bernardo Bellotto (1722–1780) was an Italian painter of exceptional gifts who carried the art of the veduta — the precisely observed topographical view — from Venice across the courts of northern Europe, leaving behind some of the most detailed and haunting urban panoramas in the history of Western painting. Born in Venice, he was the nephew and pupil of the great vedutista Giovanni Antonio Canal,...