Venice, The Grand Canal looking North from the Rialto Bridge

Bernardo Bellotto painted this stretch of Venice's Grand Canal in the mid-1740s, looking north from the Rialto Bridge. Gondolas and cargo boats crowd the water, some carrying goods, others ferrying passengers, while tiny figures go about their business along the palace-lined banks. The long building on the left, with its rows of arches, is the Fabbriche Nuove, a set of market offices, and Bellotto records its architecture with the precision of someone who cared about getting the details right.

Bellotto was the nephew and student of Canaletto, Venice's most famous painter of city views, and he learned the trade so well that his paintings were sometimes confused with his uncle's. He even signed some works with the Canaletto name abroad. His own touch shows in the cooler, more silvery light and the sharp attention to every window and chimney. Later he left Italy to work for royal courts across Europe, and his careful views of Warsaw were so accurate that they helped rebuild parts of the city after it was destroyed in World War II.