EXHIBITION: Canaletto’s Venice Revisited exploring iconic paintings of Venice at the National Maritime Museum
An exhibition of paintings of Venice by Canaletto exploring the relationship between the city and tourism and the threat climate change poses is set to open at the National Maritime Museum this spring.
On April 1, the major exhibition Canaletto’s Venice Revisited will explore some of the most iconic view paintings of Venice and how the tourism that helped establish Canaletto’s career, today threatens his city’s future.
At the heart of the exhibition is the complete set of 24 Venetian views from Woburn Abbey, painted by Canaletto for Lord John Russell, the 4th Duke of Bedford, in the 1730s.
This is the first time the paintings, thought to be Canaletto’s largest single commission, will be on display in their entirety outside of their ancestral home at Woburn Abbey.
The collection includes 22 smaller views of Venice, depicting different aspects of the city’s urban fabric, including iconic landmarks such as Piazza San Marco and the Grand Canal, as well as campi, palazzi and churches.
Bookmarking the exhibition will be Woburn Abbey’s two monumental views, A Regatta on the Grand Canal and The Grand Canal, Ascension Day: The embarkation of the Doge of Venice for the Ceremony of the Marriage of the Adriatic.
These paintings were commissioned as souvenirs following Lord John Russell’s visit to the city as part of the Grand Tour, an educational rite of passage for the wealthy in the eighteenth century.
Canaletto’s Venice Revisited will explore these origins of Venice’s tourist industry through some of the personal objects belonging to the Dukes of Bedford.
While Canaletto’s 300-year-old paintings give the impression of an unchanging and enduring city, Venice today faces urgent threats from mass tourism and severe flooding as climate change brings rising sea levels.
In recognition of these threats, Canaletto’s Venice Revisited will also revisit Venice today through contemporary images of a city at risk.
The exhibition will conclude with the annual Ascension Day festival as recorded in Canaletto’s monumental depiction of the celebration from the Woburn Abbey collection.
The festival is a medieval tradition revived from the 1960s and is still performed today, in which a ring is tossed into the lagoon, symbolising Venice’s marriage to the sea.
Even though Venice today has a precarious relationship with rising sea levels threatening its future, the Ascension Day festival is a poignant reminder that the Venetian way of life has always been defined by its lasting relationship with the sea.
Curator of Art at Royal Museums Greenwich Katherine Gazzard said: “Canaletto’s masterpieces are not simply depictions of canals and squares. They are extraordinarily detailed portraits of a living city, enlivened with people and boats.
“The generous loan of this important series from its permanent home at Woburn Abbey provides a timely opportunity to reflect on Venice’s dynamic history and its precarious present.”
Canaletto’s Venice Revisited is at the National Maritime Museum from April 1 to September 25, 2022.
Main Picture: 1359 - The Grand Canal, Ascension Day
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