Painted by Giovanni Antonio Canal, better known as “Canaletto”, in 1730, this beautiful painting is located in the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, TX. A fine example of one of Canaletto’s city view paintings of Venice, it offers us a glimpse of what Venice looked like in the 18th century. Although the line between the real and the imaginative is never clear in his paintings, Canaletto presents us with attractive and romanticized images of both Italian and English cities such as Venice, Rome, Florence, and London. Buona visione!