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Details of gondola on a Venice canal
Canaletto and the Art of Venice: The Queen's Gallery, Buckingham Palace
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Artists in Venice

Canaletto was one of many artists working in Venice, a flourishing artistic centre in the eighteenth century. Joseph Smith (c.1674–1770) was one of the greatest art patrons in the city. He knew many Venetian artists personally, and most of the paintings in this section were part of his vast collection. These works filled his palazzo on the Grand Canal and his country retreat at Mogliano on the Venetian mainland. The taste in Venice at the time was for sets of paintings or framed drawings, densely hung in decorative arrangements and uniformly framed to give a pleasing visual harmony to the collection.

Venetian artists worked in a variety of media and subjects, united by their technical expertise, their appreciation of light and colour and their sense of theatre. The painters Sebastiano Ricci and Giovanni Antonio Pellegrini painted in oil or fresco on a large scale, their narratives taken from history, literature or mythology. Other artists, including Sebastiano’s nephew Marco Ricci and Francesco Zuccarelli, painted landscapes. Like Canaletto, many Venetian artists experimented with the capriccio, combining real elements with the imagined. Encouraged by Smith, Canaletto, Zuccarelli and Antonio Visentini were also part of a group of artists interested in the buildings of the Venetian architect Andrea Palladio (1508–80).

Luca Carlevarijs (Udine 1663-Venice 1730)

A Capriccio View with a Harbour

Marco Ricci (Belluno 1676-Venice 1730)

Capriccio with Roman Ruins

Sebastiano Ricci (Belluno 1659-Venice 1734)

The Adoration of the Shepherds

Canaletto (Venice 1697-Venice 1768)

A Capriccio View with Ruins

Francesco Zuccarelli (Pitigliano 1702-Florence 1788)

Landscape with Classical Ruins, Cattle and Figures

Antonio Visentini (Venice 1688- Venice 1782) AND Francesco Zuccarelli (1702–1788)

View of the Pavilion or Bagnio at Eastbury

Sebastiano Ricci (Belluno 1659-Venice 1734)

Christ and the Woman of Samaria

Luca Carlevarijs (Udine 1663-Venice 1730)

A Capriccio View with a Shipyard

Canaletto (Venice 1697-Venice 1768)

The Colleoni Monument in a Capriccio Setting

Sebastiano Ricci (Belluno 1659-Venice 1734)

The Finding of Moses

Canaletto (Venice 1697-Venice 1768)

A Capriccio View with a Pointed Arch

Francesco Zuccarelli (Pitigliano 1702-Florence 1788)

Landscape with a Wayside Tavern

Antonio Visentini (Venice 1688- Venice 1782) AND Francesco Zuccarelli (1702–1788)

Capriccio with a view of Mereworth Castle, Kent
This painting, along with Jacob and Leah with their Sons (RCIN 406009), is part of a set of six of the same size and format, which Consul Joseph Smith must have commissioned to decorate a specific room. The series illustrates the story of Jacob's sojourn
Zuccarelli's landscape paintings

Sebastiano Ricci (Belluno 1659-Venice 1734)

The Adoration of the Kings
Bacchus, the god of wine, is here seated facing to the right, with his head turned towards the viewer. He wears vine leaves in his hair, in reference to the grape harvest, and has an animal skin draped around his left shoulder. In his right hand he holds
Bacchus and Ariadne
A pastel on blue paper of an almost half-length figure of a young girl, facing half to the left, her head lowered and turned half to the right; clasping a fur-trimmed wrap across her naked chest, across which her left arm is extended. At bottom edge, unde
Winter and Summer

Marco Ricci (Belluno 1676-Venice 1730)

Landscape with a Woman and Child in the Foreground
Marco Ricci produced a large number of paintings of landscape subjects executed in the unusual technique of gouache or possible tempera on leather, possibly kidskin (the paint was made by binding pigments with egg yolk or gum arabic respectively). Ty
Ricci's tempera paintings on leather
Apollo, the sun god, stands in profile in a river landscape. He wears a laurel crown with a halo and a red cloak and holds a bow in his right hand. His left hand is raised in a gesture of surprise; he is probably witnessing the metamorphosis of the nymph
Pellegrini's Apollo and Daphne

Marco Ricci (Belluno 1676-Venice 1730)

Landscape with Cattle and a Woman Speaking to a Seated Man

Antonio Visentini (Venice 1688- Venice 1782) and Francesco Zuccarelli (1702–1788)

View of Burlington House
A seated, nearly half-length young woman, with flowers in her hair, is receiving a garland of flowers from a putto. The woman has blond hair and is partially swathed in white and yellow drapery; her right breast is exposed. Rosalba Carriera made several
Spring and Autumn
Marco Ricci produced a large number of paintings of landscape subjects executed in the unusual technique of gouache, or perhaps tempera on leather, possibly kidskin (the paint was made by binding pigments with egg yolk or gum arabic respectively
Marco Ricci's gouache paintings

Sebastiano Ricci (Belluno 1659-Venice 1734)

Christ and the Woman who Believed

Sebastiano Ricci (Belluno 1659-Venice 1734)

Album of drawings

Sebastiano Ricci (Belluno 1659-Venice 1734)

Two heads

Sebastiano Ricci (Belluno 1659-Venice 1734)

The Adoration of the King

Sebastiano Ricci (Belluno 1659-Venice 1734) after Antoine Watteau (1684–1721)

Children's heads

Sebastiano Ricci (Belluno 1659-Venice 1734)

Studies for the Feast of Silenus

Sebastiano Ricci (Belluno 1659-Venice 1734)

The Magdalen anointing Christ's feet

Sebastiano Ricci (Belluno 1659-Venice 1734)

The head of Simon the Pharisee

Sebastiano Ricci (Belluno 1659-Venice 1734)

Diana and Callisto

Sebastiano Ricci (Belluno 1659-Venice 1734)

The Sacrifice of Polyxena

Sebastiano Ricci (Belluno 1659-Venice 1734)

A design for a monument to Newton

Sebastiano Ricci (Belluno 1659-Venice 1734)

The Communion of St Lucy
A drawing of three figures including a young woman in the centre, an old woman whispering to her on the right and a man in a plumed hat offering a bag of money on the left. Piazzetta’s paintings and drawings, sombre in tone and of an insistent larg
'Character heads'
This is one of eight head studies by Sebastiano Ricci in the 'Italian List', included in an inventory of pictures bought by George III and understood to form the basis of Consul Smith's collection. All are copies from Veronese's great The Feast in the Hou
The influence of Veronese

Sebastiano Ricci (Belluno 1659-Venice 1734)

The Feast in the House of Simon
The Married Couple's Breakfast formed part of George III's purchase of Consul Joseph Smith's collection of paintings, drawings, prints and books and was recorded at St James's Palace in 1819. The painting, along with its pendant Blind-Man's Bluff (RC
Pietro Longhi and everyday life
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