Watermark: three cardinal's hats.
Canaletto's capricci sometimes place recognizable Venetian monuments in unfamiliar settings. The church and adjacent houses on the right are real and survive to this day. The church is San Lorenzo, seen from the Fondamenta di Santa Giustina, looking along Rio di Santa Giustina toward Rio della Pietà. The bell tower resembles those of San Lorenzo and San Moisè, but no tower stood where it does in the drawing, and the bridge and picturesque cluster of buildings on the left are products of the artist's imagination. --Exhibition Label, from "Tiepolo, Guardi, and Their World: Eighteenth-Century Venetian Drawings"
Inscribed on verso in pen and brown ink at lower left, presumably in the hand of John MacGowan, "Canaletti / presented [to] me by J. Hayes".
Hayes, J., former owner.
MacGowan, John, -1803, former owner.
Seilern, Antoine, Count, 1901-1978, former owner.
Stern, F. A., former owner.
Scholz, János, former owner.
Stampfle, Felice, and Jacob Bean. Drawings from New York collections. III: The eighteenth century in Italy. New York : Metropolitan Museum of Art : Pierpont Morgan Library, 1971, no. 161, repr.
Ryskamp, Charles, ed. Seventeenth Report to the Fellows of the Pierpont Morgan Library, 1972-1974. New York : Pierpont Morgan Library, 1976, p. 157.
Scholz, Janos. Italian Master Drawings, 1350-1800, from the János Scholz Collection. New York : Dover, 1976, no. 142, repr.
From Leonardo to Pollock: Master drawings from the Morgan Library. New York: Morgan Library, 2006, cat. no. 25, p. 56-57.
100 Master drawings from the Morgan Library & Museum. München : Hirmer, 2008, no. 2, repr. [Rhode Eitel-Porter]