Bernardo Bellotto (Canaletto the younger) (1721 - 1780), "Vue du pont de Dresde sur l'Elbe" ("View of the bridge at Dresden over the Elbe").

Etching, paper. Format (plate imprint): 54.3 x 83.5 cm. Sheet size: 79 x 107 cm.

Vue du Pont de Dresden on the Elbe River with part laterale de l'Église Catholique. Later print from an old engraving plate on strong handmade paper with watermark.


Bellotto's painting of Dresden's Old Town with the Hofkirche and Frauenkirche with the so-called "Canaletto View" from his first creative period of Dresden (1747-1758) is one of the most famous and important works of the great Italian master and pioneer of the newer perspective vedutta painting. Soon after completing the painting, Bellotto also made an engraving on a copper plate and in 1748 this large-format copperplate first appeared, which is extremely rare in early original prints. - The original copperplates were destroyed during the Prussian bombardment of Dresden during the Seven Years' War in 1760. This is an engraving from a 19th century engraving plate.

Bernardo Bellotto, painter of the last Polish king Stanislaw Augustus, saved the city he portrayed for posterity. This Vedutist, painter of Venice, Dresden and eventually Warsaw, was revered for the meticulousness of his canvases, which, however, never became soulless. It is believed that he used a camera obscura to record the appearance of the places he portrayed. In any case, the paintings were so evocative that the reconstruction of Warsaw relied on his paintings as photographically certain.

But Bellotto, in Poland using his uncle's nickname Canaletto, was also a highly regarded printmaker, the author of some 40 compositions in etching. Most of them were created in Dresden, but a few were also created on the Vistula River.