Giovanni Antonio Canal was born in Venice in 1697. His father was a theatrical scene painter. The young Canal learned perspective by assisting in painting the large backdrops with fanciful arches and other architectural details that were popular at the time. The son, called Canaletto to distinguish him from his father, traveled to Rome to assist with the painting of sets for two operas by Scarlatti in 1719.

By 1723 Canaletto had begun a career as a painter of Venetian views with high prices that attested to his popularity. He won early success as an artist, but he is said to have been difficult to deal with. He often raised his prices or made other demands of patrons.

Most of his works were commissioned or purchased by the young Englishmen who were visiting Venice. Most were on the grand tour of France, the Netherlands, and Italy. This tour was a traditional part of the education of a cultured gentleman of the 18th century. Such tours often took a year or more, and the young men returned home with expensive paintings, sculptures, and artifacts as souvenirs of their experience.

In the early years Canaletto painted cool tones over a dark red ground in a fairly loose manner. Some of his paintings were oils on copper plate, but most were on canvas. Later he used warmer and brighter colors with more precise drawings and fewer atmospheric effects.

To assist with the perspective and drawing of the complex scenes, he used a camera obscura. It was a craze in the 18th century. The box-shaped apparatus is similar to a photographic camera. There is a shuttered box with a small lens in one side. The bright light from the scene enters, and forms an image on a screen, and there is a mirror which puts the reflection right side up on the drawing surface. The artist sat in front of a complex architectural scene, and could easily trace the perspectives.

Many of Canaletto’s drawings of famous views, including those done with the aid of the camera obscura, were engraved by the architect Antonio Visentini and published in 1735.

By 1741 the outbreak of the War of the Austrian Succession kept most travelers at home, and Canaletto found himself without patrons. He painted a series of capriccio works. These combined real buildings with an imaginary setting. In 1746 Canaletto went to England to find commissions. While there he painted a variety of English scenes with a particularly Venetian light and style. The British were disappointed in his work, and although he did accomplish a number of commissions, these paintings are not seen as his best. Over the next few years he alternated between London and Venice. He finally returned to Italy for good in 1756.

Canaletto was never much admired by his contemporaries in Venice. They preferred figure paintings to scenes. When he died in 1767 at the age of seventy-one, he had few possessions and little money.

Joseph Smith, a British merchant in Venice, was one of the major collectors of works of the eighteenth century. He commissioned works for his own collection, and acted as an agent for other collectors.

In 1764 King George III bought Smith’s entire library and art collection. This included a major group of Canaletto works; all of which are now in the Royal Collection at Windsor.