View of the Rialto in Venice

Canaletto's View of the Rialto in Venice, painted around 1722, is among his earliest treatments of the Rialto Bridge and the commercial heart of Venice — the area around the bridge where banks, merchants, and the famous market had concentrated since the Middle Ages. The Rialto Bridge was among Venice's most celebrated structures and had been documented by painters since the late sixteenth century. Canaletto's early version has the freshness and atmospheric sensitivity of a young painter discovering his principal subject.

The Rialto Bridge arches over the Grand Canal at its narrowest point, gondolas passing below. Canaletto's early palette here is warm and slightly golden, the light having the quality of late morning. His rendering of the bridge's stone arcade and the surrounding palace facades shows his early mastery of architectural perspective and surface texture.