The Grand Canal, Piazzetta and Dogana, Venice by Canaletto
A British manor house will soon host a program allowing visitors to disassemble and rearrange cityscapes by one of Venice’s most renowned painters: Canaletto.
Tatton Park is an estate in Cheshire overseen by the National Trust. It includes a manor house, extensive gardens, and a farm. The house often hosts exhibitions, drawing from its own collection from when the wealthy Egerton family lived there. The Egerton collection includes two paintings and four etchings by the Venetian painter Giovanni Antonio Canal, popularly known as Canaletto.
Canaletto was an incredibly popular painter among the European aristocracy, particularly in Britain, as a result of the Grand Tour. This tradition was for continental Europe’s wealthy and landed young men between the late seventeenth and early nineteenth centuries. It was a rite of passage of sorts, consisting of young men traveling throughout Europe to experience the continent’s art and culture, with a great amount of emphasis placed on the cities of Italy. As a result, many young aristocratic men returned from their adventures with a trove of art and other souvenirs they picked up on the way. I’ve previously written about one of these items when a small Scottish town considered selling off a marble bust worth £2.5 million. The bust of Sir John Gordon, a local aristocrat and later a member of Parliament, was created by the renowned French sculptor Edmé Bouchardon during his time working in Rome. The subject would have been around twenty years old at the time and likely commissioned the bust while on the Grand Tour through Italy. While portraits and busts were popular among these tourists, detailed cityscapes and landscapes were desirable as well. Canaletto soon became one of the greatest names in European painting for his lively Venetian cityscapes. His paintings can be found in many of the world’s great museums and even in the private collections of the British Royal Family and the Prince of Liechtenstein.
The two Canaletto paintings at Tatton Hall were likely brought to Britain in 1730 by Samuel Hill, uncle to the manor’s future owner Samuel Egerton. One is The Grand Canal, Piazzetta and Dogana, looking westward at the entrance of the Grand Canal close to the Pizza San Marco. The other is called The Doge’s Palace and Riva degli Schiavoni, which depicts the same place as the other painting but viewed from the opposite direction. Despite many Canalettos making their way to Britain as a result of young aristocrats on the Grand Tour, the two paintings at Tatton Hall were likely not obtained this way. Hill was close friends with Joseph Smith, the British consul in Venice, through whom he would buy and import Venetian paintings. The paintings and many other works by Canaletto serve as important documents in studying Venice’s urban development. Both paintings feature buildings that have either been significantly altered or do not exist anymore.
Tatton Park plans to use the Canaletto paintings in an extended reality experience at a free event in late September. This will educate visitors on how the paintings arrived at Tatton Hall and allow them to rearrange the components from the paintings to create their own capriccio-style cityscapes. After the September event, technicians and other specialists will further develop the experience so that it can be unveiled to the public sometime in 2026.