Venice: San Giorgio Maggiore with the Giudecca and the Zitelle

Venice: San Giorgio Maggiore with the Giudecca and the Zitelle, painted around 1780 and now in the Wallace Collection, depicts a panoramic view across the lagoon taking in Palladio's great church and the Giudecca waterfront including the Church of the Zitelle. Guardi's late atmospheric style dissolves the architecture into shimmering luminosity. The Wallace Collection, assembled primarily by the fourth Marquess of Hertford and his illegitimate son Sir Richard Wallace, contains one of the finest groups of Venetian vedute in any British collection, reflecting the passionate nineteenth-century British appreciation for Venetian art that made Guardi and Canaletto among the most sought-after painters in the London auction rooms.

The wide panoramic format encompasses multiple island silhouettes against an expansive sky. Guardi's atmospheric treatment softens the distant architecture while maintaining enough detail for architectural recognition.