The Canaletto Collection at the Queen's Gallery in Buckingham Palace, Image from the film <em>Canaletto in Venice</em>, 2017, By David Bickerstaff and Phil Grabsky | Courtesy Nexo Digital
To the English travellers visiting Venice, the paintings of Antonio Canal must have seemed like splendid souvenirs. Thus, Canaletto-mania broke out across the Channel. In a few years, thanks to the art merchant and theatre impresario Owen Swiny, British aristocrats could embellish their estates with spectacular visions of the Serenissima. With the aid of an optical device, Canaletto offered his demanding public postcards of the Lagoon long before the invention of photography - from Piazza San Marco to the Canal Grande to the Palazzo Ducale, his brush turned out vivid and indelible depictions of the marvels of the Grand Tour. Then, the banker, collector and British Consul to Venice, Joseph Smith, took the artist under his wing. The canvases flowed copiously into the kingdom of George III who, in 1763, bought the entire collection of Smith. Approximately 50 paintings, 150 drawings and 15 rare engravings by Canaletto entered Britain’s Royal Collection where they can be found today. From the walls of the Queen’s Gallery, they invite visitors to Buckingham Palace to travel through the Venice of the 1700s, among gondolas bobbing upon the water, unmistakable architecture and masterfully depicted perspectives.
For the first time, all nine known painted portraits by Jan van Eyck are brought together at the National Gallery in London. An exhibition that explores the birth of the modern portrait in fifteenth-century Northern Europe. Between identity, psychology and new research, the faces of a changing world.
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The National Gallery presents an exhibition on Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller’s landscapes. The show highlights his direct observation of nature and a rigorous approach to composition. Light, seasons and structure define a modern vision of the landscape.
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