Canaletto (Giovanni Antonio Canal) (Italian, Venetian, 16971768)
Pen and brown ink, gray wash; 12 2/5 x 22 1/8 in. (31.6 x 56.2 cm)
Robert Lehman Collection, 1975 (1975.1.297)
Canaletto's highly detailed, topographically accurate panoramic views were greatly admired and avidly collected by English visitors to Venice, who acquired them as souvenirs of the Grand Tour. In 1746, when demand for Canaletto's work in his native city declined, he traveled to England. He remained there for nearly a decade, producing characteristically descriptive views of London and the English countryside. The artist completed five paintings of Warwick Castle, the subject of this scenic drawing, for Francis Greville, Lord Brooke and later earl of Warwick. The Lehman sheet appears to have served as a preparatory design for the canvas now in the City Museum and Art Gallery, Birmingham, one of two versions depicting the castle from the east.