San Giorgio Maggiore, Venice, from the Canale della Grazia

Johann Anton Richter was born in Stockholm, but left his native city to travel to Italy and was known to be active in Venice by 1717 during the later years of Luca Carlevarijs' career. In fact, it is possible that he even spent time working in Carlevarijs's studio as an apprentice; he appears as such in the 1722 inventory of the Florentine collector Francesco Gaburri. Like Carlevarijs, Richter's Venetian views are often populated by animated figures which are generally more individualized than those of other Venetian View painters. Giuseppe Fiocco held that it was Richter rather than Carlevarijs who exerted a significant influence on the young Canaletto, a view that has not found subsequent favour. Still, W.G. Constable stressed the historical importance of Richter's Venetian capricci (in addition to the work of Carlevarijs) as precursors of those of Canaletto, arguing that he was 'one of the first painters in Venice, if not the first' to have made the capriccio proper a regular part of his production.

The view in the present picture of San Giorgio Maggiore from the Canale della Grazia is rather unusual and was also painted by Francesco Guardi late in his career (Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam; and two other versions respectively in the Philadelphia Museum of Art and in the Galleria Nazionale di Palazzo Barberini, Rome).