This is a study for one of a pair of views of the Grand Canal by the Rialto commissioned by Alessandro Marchesini in 1725 for Stefano Conti, a textile merchant from Lucca, both now in a private collection, Toronto, W.G. Constable and J.G. Links, Canaletto, Giovanni Antonio Canal, 1697-1768, Oxford, 1989, no. 230, illustrated and K. Baetjer and J.G. Links, Canaletto, New York, 1989, no. 9, illustrated in colour. The Conti pictures are the earliest views which can be securely dated, and of key importance in the dating of his early works. The connection with the painting is established by the inclusion of the scaffolding at the far side of the Palazzo Pesaro, which was put up for the construction of the Palazzo Corner della Regina begun in 1724. None of the later paintings of the view include the scaffolding, Constable and Links, nos. 232-3, illustrated. The preparatory drawing for the other Conti painting is in the Ashmolean Museum, K.T. Parker, Catalogue of the Collection of Drawings in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, 1956, II, no. 975 and K. Baetjer and J.G. Links, op. cit., no. 86, illustrated in colour