From the walls of 10 Downing Street - the finest Canaletto still in private hands | Christie's
3 Video Views·Jun 17, 2025
Join Dr James Fox, art historian and broadcaster, in conversation with Letizia Treves, Christie's Global Head of Research and Expertise, on Canaletto's "Venice, the Return of the Bucintoro on Ascension Day" - formerly in the collection of Britain’s first prime minister, Sir Robert Walpole.
It hung in 10 Downing Street in the first-floor parlour on the other side of the fireplace from its pendant work: Canaletto's Venice, The Grand Canal, Looking North-East from Palazzo Balbi to the Rialto Bridge. This work became the most expensive painting by the artist ever to appear at auction, when it was sold in 2005 — a record that still stands. Now, the present work is being offered at Christie’s in London on 1 July 2025, leading the Old Masters Evening Sale during Classic Week.
‘This is one of the most sublime works Canaletto ever painted,’ says Andrew Fletcher, global head of Christie’s Old Masters department. ‘It’s also, in my view, unquestionably the finest work by him in private hands.’
I'm on my way to see a masterpiece that first hung in number 10 Downing Street
in the remarkable collection of Britain's first Prime Minister Sir Robert Walpole.
Now I'm heading to Christie's on King Street just on the other side of St James's Park
to see the picture which is widely considered the finest work by the artist still in private hands
and I tell you I am very very excited.
Letizia, this extraordinary picture by Venice's greatest view painter Canaletto was made
in the 1730s. Can you give me a sense of where it fits in Canaletto's career?
So we think it was painted around 1732 and this is really when Canaletto's at the peak
of his abilities. It's a time during which he's in great demand and you can see the supreme
confidence in the way he handles the paint and also in the kind of compositions he's putting
together. Canaletto was from a family of artists, his father was a stage painter,
he was a stage scenery painter as well. There's something very theatrical about this picture
isn't there? There is, it's very theatrical both in the lighting but most of all in the
composition. So he lines up the Marlore here at this oblique angle so that you have this very
impressive lineup of Venice's landmarks. It's sort of the perfect backdrop to what's going on
in front. Yeah Venice is a kind of stage set from this perspective isn't it and the remarkable
thing is of course it's barely changed at all. You arrive, you've got the Ducal Palace,
you've got the Mint, the Great Library, the Campanile, it's an extremely dramatic environment.
So I'm sure this is not a normal day in Venice, could you tell me a little bit more about what
is actually being pictured here? Sure, so it's the feast of Ascension Day and it was the only
occasion in which the Buccintoro, the Doge's barge, which is beautifully ornate here at the
centre of the composition, came out and the Doge would sail out to the Lido and he would throw a
ring into the water as a sort of symbolic act of the marriage of the city of Venice to the sea.
And these festivals were really going to become a sort of specialty for Canaletto and his studio
by the middle of the 18th century. One of the things that is truly extraordinary about this
picture when you look at it close is the variety of technique. Technically it's absolutely
astonishing, there's this wet in wet in the sky, the paint is very thick in the foreground,
it's a remarkable technical masterclass isn't it? It is and already by this date Canaletto's
supremely confident in handling paint. The figures in the foreground, for example,
he almost builds up with the paint medium to create these sort of three-dimensional figures
and they're real individuals unlike the distant crowd where they're painted in an abbreviated
form, almost like calligraphic squiggles, but the effect is of a throng pulsating with life
on the molo. He also gives this impression of kind of airy spontaneous quality to his painting
but actually it's underscored by incredible precision and we know that he used rulers and
incising instruments not only to mark out and plot out where the architecture would go but also
to create grooves in the surface of the paint. He's also a master at creating kind of atmospheres,
you can sort of feel the gentle breeze in the feathered caps of the gondoliers and also in
the kind of rippled effect, you can almost hear the sounds of the oars sweeping through the water,
he's an absolute master at kind of evoking that sort of effect. And obviously it's not just a
great picture, the provenance is absolutely incredible with this, can you tell us a little
bit about its backstory and where it started out? It's first recorded at Downing Street in 1736,
hanging in the official residence of Britain's first Prime Minister Sir Robert Walpole
and this picture and what was once its pair used to hang in the same room either side of a fireplace.
I wonder whether this picture in its position in Downing Street wasn't just a kind of nice
decorative artefact but something that had this kind of larger symbolic power, it's amazing to
think that the great and the good coming into that building and maybe looking at that picture
and discussing it, it's really exciting isn't it? One of the things I've looked at many Canalettas
in my time, I've very rarely seen such prominence in pasto, is the condition of this picture
particularly good? It's in fantastic condition and that's because it's exchanged hands very
few times in its history. I mean the term masterpiece is somewhat overused but in this
case I really feel it applies, it is the quintessential view of Venice, the most
desirable subject of the Festival of the Ascension Day by the most talented artist of
his day, in his best moment in the early 1730s, in perfect condition and with impeccable provenance.
I mean it takes every box and I think in this case it really is a masterpiece in the truest sense of the word.