View of Gazzada near Varese

Painted in 1744 and now in the Pinacoteca di Brera in Milan, this view of Gazzada near Varese is one of Bellotto's rare Lombard vedute, painted during his period of travel through northern Italy before his departure for Dresden. Gazzada, a small town in the foothills north of Milan, contained the villa of the Visconti family, whose summer residence provided the specific architectural focus of this painting. The Visconti commission allowed Bellotto to demonstrate his veduta technique in a context very different from the great urban panoramas of Venice and Dresden, applying his precise architectural method to a smaller-scale villa landscape. The Brera's acquisition of this work — the museum being the primary institutional repository of Milanese and Lombard painting — makes it accessible within the context of Italian art rather than the Northern European collections where most of Bellotto's work resides.

The canvas demonstrates Bellotto's adaptation of his urban veduta technique to a landscape setting: the villa's architecture provides the compositional anchor while the surrounding countryside is rendered with his characteristic fluffy foliage treatment and atmospheric recession. The foreground is animated by country figures and animals in contrast to the urban staffage of his city views. The soft Lombard light differs from the cooler, more northerly atmospheres of his later work.