A drawing of the Fontegheto della Farina in Venice. On the far right is the west end of the Granai, and the bridge over the Rio della Luna. At centre right is the Fontegheto della Farina, with the Palazzo Valaresso directly behind. On the far left is a small part of Santa Maria della Salute. Behind the masts of the ships moored in the quay is the tower of Palazzo Venier delle Torreselle.

The drawing belongs to a series of small drawings consisting of pairs of sheets of the same composition (RL 7462-5), one executed in pen only, the other shaded with grey wash rather than pen hatching. The pen style of each is essentially the same, though the flatter handling of the wash version would suggest that in each case it was drawn after the pen-only version. The use of overlays demonstrates that no tracing took place, and that each version was laid out afresh.

This and its pair (RL 7464) are not capricci, but give a more or less reliable view from the Fondamenta della Farina, west of the Piazzetta and Molo. In the centre is the Fontegheto della Farina, which controlled the supply of wheat and flour in the city. The building became the seat of the Accademia di Pittura e Scultura between 1756 and 1817, when it moved to the converted Scuola Grande della Carità. It is now the offices of the Capitaneria di Porto. Behind, at a greater distance than the drawing suggests, is Palazzo Valaresso (rebuilt in the nineteenth century as the Albergo Monaco), with Renaissance additions to the rear. This view of the two buildings was recorded rather schematically, and possibly reworked by a later hand, on a page of the Sketchbook, which initially formed the basis for two paintings of the early 1730s.

In the foreground is the low broad bridge over the Rio della Luna; to the right, the Granai; to the left, Santa Maria della Salute, the side and the reverse of the façade of San Gregorio, and the tower of Palazzo Venier delle Torreselle. The uncertain spatial relationships between the various parts of the composition suggest that Canaletto assembled them from pre-existing studies. There are only small variations of detail between the pen and wash versions, such as the distant belltower between San Gregorio and Palazzo Venier, with a spire in one and a dome in the other, and the small knot of figures standing before the bridge at lower right, present only in one.

Catalogue entry adapted from Canaletto in Venice, London, 2005