Venice: Campo S. Vidal and Santa Maria della Carità ('The Stonemason's Yard')

about 1725

Oil on canvas, 48 3/4 × 64 1/4 in. The National Gallery, London

Before the souvenir views, the working city: a square turned into a mason's yard while the church beside it was repaired, early in the morning.

Look at

Low morning light enters from the left across the stone blocks and the shed, laying long shadows over the ground.
The viewpoint is about first-floor height, with buildings closing both sides and the campanile across the canal the one tall vertical.
White paint is piled thick on the washing and curtains, and a brick-red ground shows through in places.

Sir George Beaumont owned it by 1808 and gave it in 1823; it reached the National Gallery in 1828.
The bell tower fell in 1744 and was never rebuilt; no preparatory drawing and no second painted version of the scene is known.

Image: Wikimedia Commons · Public domain