(Venice 1664–1744)
The Piazzetta looking towards the Torre dell‘Orologio, Venice,
oil on canvas, 55.3 x 80.5 cm, framed

Provenance:
John Mason, England, 1815;
his daughter Mrs J. C. Warner, Boston (USA), 1831;
her daughter Mrs W. Appleton Jr., Boston (USA), 1856;
her son W. Appleton, 1905;
Sale, Porro & C, Milan, 21 October 2009, Lot 9 (as Luca Carlevarijs)

Literature:
D. Succi, Il fiore di Venezia. Dipinti dal Seicento all’Ottocento in collezioni private, 2014, pp. 182-183, no. 121

Bernardo Canal was the father of Antonio Canal, il Canaletto. His oeuvre has stylistic and iconographic links to the works of his son and other artists, including Luca Carlevarijs, Bernardo Bellotto and Johan Anton Richter.

On his son Antonio’s baptism certificate (dated 17th October 1697), Bernardo is recorded as being a painter by profession, while in 1717 and in the years 1737–1743, his name appears in the records of the Venetian corporation of painters. From 1716 to 1718, Bernardo worked with his brother Cristoforo and son Antonio in the production of sets for the Venetian theatres of Sant’Angelo (1716–1717) and San Cassiano (1718-1719). In 1719-1720 he was in Rome, where, together with his son, he painted the sets for two operas, Tito Sempronio Gracco and Tullio Aricino by Alessandro Scarlatti, performed at the Capranica theatre during the carnival of 1720. Rodolfo Pallucchini (see R. Pallucchini, La pittura nel Veneto. Il Settecento, II, Milan 1994–1996, p. 298) produced an effective summary of the features of Bernardo Canal’s work, observing especially his precise brushwork.

The present view is an example of how despite having acquired considerable technical skill, Bernardo Canal generally preferred to find inspiration in other people’s work, offering a personal interpretation full of aesthetic and poetic value. The painting adopts a point of view used several times by the Swedish painter, Johan Anton Richter, as is clear from a comparison with La Piazzetta conserved at the Cooper Union Museum, New York.

Succi (see literature) has dated the present work to around 1730.