Piazza San Marco, Venice, with the Basilica and the Campanile, with figures in carnival costume

This view and the following lot show two of the most celebrated sights of Venice, the Piazzetta, flanked by two of the great secular buildings of Venice, the medieval Doge’s Palace on the left and Sansovino’s Libreria on the right, with the Molo, and, across the Bacino, the façade of Palladio’s great church of San Giorgio Maggiore; and the Piazza San Marco looking towards the Basilica, the religious centre, although not originally the cathedral of the city. Inevitably both were subjects for which there was a considerable demand. Morassi lists no fewer than eighteen variants of the Piazzetta seen from a roughly central view point, and twenty-eight of the Piazza (op. cit., nos. 314-41 and 361-72). Of these the majority are on canvas, with a handful on panel. Though the dimensions of both Beit pictures match precisely, and they hung as a pair in the Music Room at Russborough, Morassi lists them separately in his catalogue. He dates the present lot to 1760-70, and the following picture (lot 39) to 1775-80.