Canaletto and Guardi

A celebration of the beauty of Venice that Wallace Collection’s paintings convey and an enjoyable and informative complement to viewing the paintings in the flesh.   Among the renowned Old Master paintings at the Wallace Collection in London is an important group of 27 eighteenth-century views of Venice, known as vedute, by Canaletto and his followers, including Francesco Guardi. They hang together in a dedicated gallery known as the Canaletto Room, but the majority had not been cleaned since the nineteenth century and their original beauty was obscured by multiple layers of discoloured varnish.The paintings have now been restored, following a recent multi-year conservation and research project, and this book presents them in their renewed splendour. It features essays and commentaries by Charles Beddington, the global expert on vedute, and by Wallace Collection curator Lelia Packer, which provide fresh insights into the artists’ creative processes, the dating of pictures and their authorship. Canaletto and Guardi is a gorgeous celebration of the beauty of Venice that these paintings convey.