Lot Essay
This picture corresponds closely with Canaletto's London: the New Horse Guards from St James's Park (W.G. Constable and J. Links, Canaletto, Oxford, 1976, 2nd ed., II, no. 418, I, pl. 207). However, it omits the building introduced between Horse Guards and the row of houses on the right, which obstructs the view of the furthest bay of the side façade of the south block of the former in the autograph picture. The building in question does not appear in Canaletto's earlier London: the Old Horse Guards from St James's Park (Constable and Links, op. cit., no. 415, now in the collection of Sir Andrew Lloyd-Webber) nor in the London: the New Horse Guards (under construction) (Constable and Links, op. cit., no. 417) in which the southern block itself is also omitted; the New Horse Guards was not completed until November 1753. This picture thus represents a stage between Canaletto's last two pictures of the subject (Constable and Links, op. cit., nos. 417 and 418), and may well be by a painter who had direct access to the master.