View of the Riva degli Schiavoni and the Piazzetta

The Riva degli Schiavoni — Venice's broad waterfront promenade running east from the Doge's Palace toward the Arsenal — was named for the Slavic (Schiavoni) traders who moored their ships there from the medieval period. By the eighteenth century it was Venice's most animated public walkway, with its unobstructed view across the Bacino di San Marco to San Giorgio Maggiore making it the favored promenade of Venetian society and visiting Grand Tour travelers alike. Henry James, who visited Venice many times in the following century, described the Riva as one of the most pleasurable walks in Europe. Isabella Stewart Gardner acquired this 1760 view for her Venetian-inspired Boston museum, opened in 1903. Mrs. Gardner's acquisition of Guardi reflects her taste for the atmospheric and personally expressive over the officially grand — she collected artists whose work had an emotional directness and pictorial beauty that transcended academic convention. The Venetian subject was doubly appropriate for a museum whose building was itself conceived as an evocation of Venetian palazzo architecture.

The waterfront extends across the composition in a gentle curve, with the architectural landmarks receding toward the Piazzetta. Guardi's handling of the crowded quayside combines architectural precision in the major buildings with sketchy abbreviation for the figures and smaller structures. The lagoon water in the foreground provides a reflective surface that Guardi exploits for atmospheric effect.