Saturday, October 30, 2010

Painting of the Week: Canaletto’s “Eton College,” 1754

Eton College
Canaletto, 1754
National Gallery, Britain
Venetian painter Giovanni Antonio Canal (known as Canaletto) was admired for his accurate landscape paintings which depicted startlingly precise topographical features.  His work was especially favored by English collectors.  Canaletto spent a good amount of time traveling and living in England and painted many brilliant landscapes and English scenes.  The painting of Eton College shows the college chapel from the East from across the Thames.   Though Canaletto was staying in nearby Windsor in 1747, and could have painted this piece at that time, the style of the painting suggests that it is a later work dating to about 1754.  This, and other examples of Canaletto’s work is in the permanent collection at the National Gallery, Britain.

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