The Piazza San Marco, Venice, looking west along the central line

The composition derives, with some variances in the staffage, from the original formerly in the collection of the Earls Fitzwilliam, Milton Park (see W.G. Constable, Canaletto, 2nd edn., rev. J.G. Links, Oxford, 1976, I, pp. 195-6, no. 23; II, pl. 15); that painting was one of a series of eight in the same collection that were perhaps acquired by the 2nd Earl Fitzwilliam on his Grand Tour of 1766-8. This composition was engraved by Visentini, and a studio version was in the Camillo Castiglione sale, Berlin, 29 November 1930, lot 13. The latter work also varied the staffage of Canaletto's original, and may therefore have been the basis for the present work.