The entrance to the Palazzo Ducale from the Piazzetta San Marco, Venice, Italy

Prout visited Venice in 1824 and the watercolours he exhibited on his return to England were somewhat of a novelty: Turner and Bonington exhibited their Venetian views a little later. Ruskin writing on Prout's Venetian sketches commented '..you have been so scrupulous and fondly faithful: and so often rendered the character of peculiar features, of which I believe few persons...could understand the precision' (Letter of May 1849 - Works, XXXVIII, 343).
A similar watercolour, looking out onto the Piazza from the entrance to the Palazzo Ducale is in the collection of the Trustees of the Royal Society of Painters in Watercolours.