Watson identified this view as the terrace of Old Montagu House in London with Westminster Bridge in the background. Characteristically, Canaletto, for aesthetic reasons, altered the architectural setting: he transformed the façade of Montagu House into two buildings of different heights; the 16th Century buildings, the remains of Whitehall, have been changed into more classical constructions; and the low building on the left was given a distinctly Venetian flat roof. A Canaletto drawing of A View of Whitehall and the Privy Garden with Montagu House and the Thames beyond that gives a more faithful depiction of this view around 1746, was sold in these Rooms, 9 December 1986, lot 82, illustrated.
The numerous colour annotations suggest that Canaletto planned a painting of this view. It is likely that Canaletto drew the present study en plein air, as is indicated by the rapid sketches of the boats and the standing men on the verso, and the way in which he evidently ran out of space when drawing the chimney at the upper right and was forced to draw it on the blank wall below. No related painting, however, is known and there are only three finished drawings of this view in Frankfurt, in the Victoria and Albert Museum, and in a private English collection, W.G. Constable and J.G. Links, op. cit., 1976, no. 786, 786a-b, pl. 148.
A number of other sketchy drawings drawn en plein air in Venice and similarly annotated with colours are reproduced in V. Moschini, Canaletto, Milan, 1963, nos. 51-2, 70.