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Featured works span the 18th-century, from one of the first accurately datable Venetian views by Luca Carlevarijs of 1707 to the death of Francesco Guardi in 1793. The age of the veduta (view) reached its zenith around 1740, by which time the acquisition of this choice souvenir had become an important element of the Grand Tour of Italy. In the first half of the century, aristocratic travellers, led by English milordi, fuelled a vibrant and highly competitive market for Venetian view painting which saw artists jostling for commissions and fame. Together they immortalised some of the best-loved landmarks of the city including the Grand Canal, the Piazza San Marco, the Rialto, the Molo, Santa Maria della Salute and the Lagoon.

The fine detail in Canaletto's renderings of architectural structures is attributed to his use of a camera obscura which enabled his to create traceable blueprints on which to build up his finely detailed topographies. From March 1 to May 30, Washington DC will honor Italian culture with La Dolce DC, a citywide celebration of all things Italian, timed to coincide with the opening of Venice: Canaletto and His Rivals. In addition to this landmark exhibition and the outstanding Italian masterpieces in the permanent collection, the Gallery will present an array of offerings celebrating Italian culture, including lectures, film programs, concerts, Gallery Talks, and Garden Café Italia. Accademia Carrara, Bergamo, Guglielmo Lochis bequest (540). Oil on canvas, 24 x 35 3/8 in. (61 x 90 cm). By Canaletto, early 1730s. Constable and Links 1989, no. 240(a).

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Created over a nine-year period, when the artist was at the pinnacle of his career, the Woburn Abbey paintings are the largest set of paintings that Canaletto ever produced, and much the largest that has remained together. The Holburne exhibition provides a unique and unprecedented opportunity to see these exceptional paintings at viewing height, as they normally hang three high in the setting in the Dining Room they have occupied at Woburn since the late eighteenth century. The set features not only classic views of the Grand Canal and the Piazza S. Marco but also some of the city’s less well-known nooks and crannies, rarely captured by other artists and revealing new historical and cultural perspectives on Venice in its last decades as the “ most serene Republic”. Everett Fahy in The Wrightsman Pictures. Ed. Everett Fahy. New York, 2005, pp. 61–64, no. 16, ill. (color), notes that the Marlborough provenance of the Harvey series has been confirmed by John Harris (as relayed to him by Francis Russell in May 2000), who discovered an inventory of the pictures at Langley from the 1890s stating that five views of Venice in the drawing room "and others by Canaletto were bought with the house from the Duke of Marlborough in 1788. In an old inventory they are described as 'twenty views in fine frames'".

He was born in Venice as the son of the painter Bernardo Canal, hence his mononym Canaletto ("little Canal"), and Artemisia Barbieri. Canaletto served his apprenticeship with his father and his brother. He began in his father's occupation, that of a theatrical scene painter. Canaletto was inspired by the Roman vedutista Giovanni Paolo Pannini, and started painting the daily life of the city and its people. Everett Fahy in The Wrightsman Pictures. Ed. Everett Fahy. New York, 2005, pp. 59–61, no. 15, ill. (color), dates it to the late 1720s; lists fifteen additional versions of the composition.The core of his market were English Grand Tourists looking to buy souvenirs to solidify their social status when they returned home," Gazzard says. "The Grand Tourists had the means and the incentive to buy his work.” Canaletto has left a somewhat mixed legacy. Highly in demand during his lifetime, his topographies provided inspiration for the next generation of cityscapists and landscapists who advanced his fastidious style of painting. His followers included his duplicitous nephew Bernardo Bellotto, but also artists including the Italians Giovanni Battista Cimaroli, Antonio Diziani, Francesco Guardi, and Francesco Zuccarelli, and a generation of English landscape painters including Paul Sandby. Indeed, Canaletto elevated the vedute painting style and should be considered a trailblazer in his application of the use of the camera obscura and his approach of rendering his views in real time and space. While painting on location became the very foundation for the development of one of the earliest modern art movements, Impressionism, it was close to unheard of in Canaletto's time. Canaletto Guardi: Les deux maîtres de Venise. Ed. Bozena Anna Kowalczyk. Exh. cat., Musée Jacquemart-André. Brussels, 2012, p. 90, under no. 13, dates it 1728. This landmark exhibition presents the finest assembly of Venetian views by Canaletto and his 18th-century rivals to be seen in a generation. Bringing together around 50 major loans from the public and private collections of the UK, Europe and North America, Venice: Canaletto and His Rivals highlights the extraordinary variety of Venetian view painting, juxtaposing masterpieces by Canaletto with key works by artists including Luca Carlevarijs, Michele Marieschi, Bernardo Bellotto and Francesco Guardi.