Venice: The Grand Canal looking East, with the churches of Santa Maria della Carità, and Santa Maria della Salute beyond

Previously attributed to Bernardo Bellotto, this atmospheric view can now be assigned to a group of works that Charles Beddington has identified as by an anonymous but distinctive hand in Bellotto’s circle, who may have worked alongside the artist during his early years in Canaletto’s studio (see C. Beddington, 'Bernardo Bellotto and His Circle in Italy. Part II: The Lyon Master and Pietro Bellotti’, The Burlington Magazine, CXLVII, 2005). The master’s sobriquet is taken from a work in the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Lyon, The Grand Canal, Looking North from the Palazzo Rezzonico to the Palazzo Balbi, once also ascribed to Bellotto.

Beddington characterises the Lyon Master’s work as showing a profound understanding of the earliest style of the precocious Bellotto, particularly in its sharp contrasts between light and shadow, and the use of black, a colour favoured by Bellotto but not used by any other eighteenth-century Venetian view painter. The Lyon Master even modelled his skies after the youthful Bellotto, using diagonal strokes of paint from lower left to upper right. In its highly distinctive tonality and expressive atmosphere, the present view eloquently demonstrates the elements that set the Lyon Master apart from other hands within Canaletto’s studio.