Venice: the Dogana with Santa Maria della Salute

Venice: The Dogana with Santa Maria della Salute, painted around 1775 and now in the Wallace Collection, depicts two of Venice's most recognizable waterfront monuments — the triangular customs house and Longhena's great Baroque church. The Dogana, topped by its golden globe supporting Fortune, marks the point where the Grand Canal meets the Bacino di San Marco. Guardi's mature atmospheric treatment dissolves the white marble of the Salute into shimmering light, while the Dogana provides a geometric anchor for the composition. The Wallace Collection's extensive Venetian holdings reflect the passionate nineteenth-century British love affair with Venice that produced some of the finest collections of Venetian art outside Italy.

The composition balances the vertical mass of the Salute dome with the horizontal line of the Dogana. Guardi's animated water surface and luminous sky create the distinctive light of the Venetian waterfront.