The tower of Marghera

Antonio Canal
Italy
1697 – 1768

The tower of Marghera
from the series Vedute (Views)
c 1740-44
etching on paper
Place made
Venice, Italy
Medium
etching on paper
State
De Vesme 2 i/ii; Bormberg (1974) 2 ii/iii
Dimensions
29.9 x 42.9 cm (plate)
41.6 x 58.5 cm (sheet)
Credit line
Morgan Thomas Bequest Fund 1964
Accession number
6412G41
Signature and date
Signed in plate l.l. "A. Canal f.". Not dated.
Catalogue raisonne
De Vesme 2 i/ii; Bromberg 2 ii/iii
Media category
Print
Collection area
European prints

  • WALL LABEL: A Beautiful Line: Italian prints from Mantegna to Piranesi, 2012

     

    Canaletto’s city views combine observed reality with fantasy. This print is of an actual fifteenth-century fortification on the edge of a lagoon just outside Venice. By contrast The portico with a lantern presents an imaginary scene – an atmospheric mood piece rather than an actual place.

     

    Canaletto’s ability to describe the play of light on buildings and water in his prints is unparalleled in Venetian printmaking in the eighteenth century. Canaletto’s etching needle’s responsive, rhythmic, yet controlled line covers the entire surface of his images and, at close range, creates a dazzling optical effect. In the portico with a lantern the varying density of the strokes creates the illusion of the movement of air, as one sees it in the shimmering heat of a summer’s day.

     

    Maria Zagala, Associate Curator of Prints, Drawings & Photographs

  • Italian Old Master Prints from the Collection of the Art Gallery of South Australia

    Art Gallery of South Australia, 11 March 1983 – 15 May 1983

  • Impressioni Italiane: Etchings, Engravings & Woodcuts from the Renaissance to the Rococo

    Art Gallery of South Australia, 2 November 1991 – 2 February 1992

  • Making Nature: Masters of European Landscape Art

    Art Gallery of South Australia, 26 June 2009 – 6 September 2009

  • A beautiful line. Italian prints from Mantegna to Piranesi

    Art Gallery of South Australia, 20 August 2010 – 31 October 2010
  • [Book] Craddock & Barnard. Engravings & Etchings (Fifteenth to Nineteenth Centuries) Recent Acquisitions: Catalogue 107.
  • [Book] Picture Book: Selected Works from the Collections of the Art Gallery of South Australia.
  • [Book] Five Centuries of Genius: European Master Printmaking.
  • [Book] de Vesme, Alexandre. Le Peintre-Graveur Italien.
  • [Book] Bromberg, Ruth. Canaletto's Etchings.
  • [Book] Messenger, Jane. Making Nature: Masters of European Landscape Art.
  • [Book] Zagala, Maria. A Beautiful Line : Italian prints from Mantegna to Piranesi.