View of the Mills of Dolo on the Brenta

Canaletto's View of the Mills of Dolo on the Brenta, painted around 1730, is an unusual subject in his oeuvre — not a Venetian canal scene but the mills along the Brenta Riviera, the inland waterway leading from Venice to Padua lined with aristocratic villas. Such inland views were less commercially prominent than his Venetian vedute but demonstrate the full range of his landscape interests. The Brenta mills were working industrial structures embedded in a charming pastoral setting.

The mills' timber and stone structures are reflected in the calm Brenta canal, creating a doubling of the composition characteristic of Canaletto's water views. His warm light and careful attention to the textures of weathered wood and stone give the industrial subject a picturesque quality. The staffage figures loading and working by the mills animate the foreground.