BERNARDO BELLOTTO (1721-1780)

Bernardo Bellotto was the nephew of Antonio Canaletto, who became his teacher and master. Having left his uncle's workshop aged 21, Bellotto first went to Rome in 1742 and then travelled and worked in Northern Italy. He is however best known for his vedute of Northern European capitals, both in painting and in etching, produced following his invitation by Augustus III, Prince-Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, in 1747 to Dresden, where he lived and worked for over ten years. He also received other princely, royal and imperial commissions, including from the King of Bavaria in Munich, Catherine the Great in Saint Petersburg, and Maria Theresia in Vienna, all of whom wished their residences to be painted by the Italian painter, who in fact often went by the name Canaletto. Following the death of his first great patron, Augustus III in Dresden, Bellotto became the court painter of the newly enthroned King of Poland, Stanislas August Poniatowski, in Warsaw, where he remained until the end of his life.
The present view of the old market square in Dresden, executed on a scale his uncle Antonio in Venice had never attempted in etching (see lot 24), is based on a painting created during his early period in the city where it can be seen to this day (Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, inv. n. 614).