The father of the artist Canaletto painted stage scenery, and the theatrical tricks with light and perspective that he passed on to his famous son were evident in the splendid backdrop to the meeting of the accession council on Saturday in St James’s Palace.
The oil painting that featured so prominently was painted in 1744 and bought by George III in 1762. The Grand Canal With Santa Maria della Salute Looking East Towards the Bacino shows the great church of Santa Maria della Salute towering over the water in the strong morning sun. Measuring more than 2 metres (7 feet) wide, it was signed by the artist – real name Giovanni Antonio Canal – on the moored barge at the front of the composition.
It is one of many views of Venice, both in oils and sketches, originally collected or commissioned by Canaletto’s entrepreneurial agent, the British consul, Joseph Smith. An 1819 Buckingham Palace inventory records the painting as hanging in the king’s own bedroom.
Lots of major royal paintings are away from their London home now, on display in the Queen’s Gallery in Edinburgh, but this one stayed behind. Its choice as a setting for the proclamation of a king is slightly undermined by the fact that Venice was proudly republican at the time it was painted and purchased, remaining that way, as La Serenissima, or the Most Serene Republic, until 1797.
