The Square of Saint Mark's, Venice

1742/1744

Oil on canvas, 45 1/8 × 60 1/4 in. National Gallery of Art, Washington

A square Canaletto painted at least a dozen times, here in full sun and on a large canvas: the Venetian view polished into a product.

Look at

Sunlight from the left throws hard shadow under the arcades, and the pale paving lines lead the eye in.
The three flagpoles step back into depth and the pink palace front recedes to the lagoon at the right, one long diagonal.
The architecture is ruled and exact; the people are dots of colour with a flick for a cloak.

Signed A.C.F at lower left; probably painted for Castle Howard and sold from there in 1938 to Barbara Hutton, who gave it in 1945.
Its pendant is also in Washington; the Bacino di San Marco in Boston came from the same country-house group.