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Ale Porto del Dolo
Canaletto (Italian, 1697-1768)
1735/43
- Medium
- Etching in black on ivory laid paper
- Classification
- Dimensions
- Plate: 29.5 × 43.1 cm (11 5/8 × 17 in.); Sheet: 43.1 × 58.6 cm (17 × 23 1/8 in.)
- Culture
- Italy
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Prints and Drawings
- Credit line
- The Joseph Brooks Fair Collection
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Teens profiles and older: its museum says too little about what it shows to place it for younger viewers. How works are placed
View at the Art Institute of Chicago
About this work
Canaletto began his career painting Venetian landscapes and sold the majority of his works to Englishmen on their Grand Tours of Europe. In the 18th century, Venice saw a printmaking revival due to an increase in tourists. As the demand for prints grew, Canaletto turned to etching to satisfy the tourists’ needs for souvenirs. Ale porto del Dolo shows a passenger barge leaving its dock on a side canal with the campanile of San Rocco at Dolo in the distance. By varying the direction and intensity of his etched line, Canaletto obtained shimmering silver tones with contrasting blacks and whites, capturing this humble scene with convincing illumination.
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
