Why is there so much art by Canaletto in the UK?

A look at our favourite painter of Venice

A view across San Marco Piazza (St. Mark’s Square) in Venice. Image courtesy John Soanes Museum

The Wallace Collection has 15, The National Gallery has 17 and there are works in the collections of V&A, Museum of London, The Courtauld, National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, Sir John Soanes Museum and Dulwich Picture Gallery. All told there are 139 works by Venetian painter Giovanni Antonio Canal, better known as Canaletto, in UK collections¹.

He feels like a fitting subject for the newsletter today, as I happen to be in Venice at the moment, surrounded by some of his most famous subjects - his canals (a great example of nominative determinism that he was so drawn to painting them).

But how did so many of his works come to end up in the UK? It’s a story of rich folk - as sadly many stories around art trends are - and an enterprising partnership between a banker and an artist.

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From the 17th through to the 19th century it became the fashion for wealthy young men in Britain to go on a ‘grand tour’ of Europe - think upperclass Georgian inter-railing - when they came of age, around 21 years old. It was customary to look for mementos of their travels and as there were no fridge magnets to be found², there was a big market for young, wealthy Brits wanting to buy paintings of Venice to show all their friends back home - a 350 year precursor to flexing your holiday shots on social media.

Looking along the Grand Canal to Rialto Bridge, courtesy The Wallace Collection