Francesco Guardi, 'An Architectural Caprice', 1770-8

This capriccio, or architectural fantasy, is a patchwork of features taken from different buildings in Venice: the archway in the foreground is from the Torre dell‘Orologio (clock tower) while the buildings and staircase (known as the Scala dei Giganti, the ’Giant’s Stairway') are from the inner courtyard of the Doge’s Palace. Guardi has exaggerated the width of the archway and the distance to the arches beyond to draw our eye further into the painting, while the staircase gives the scene a sense of grandeur.

The archway we are looking through is partially in shadow, but patches of intense sunlight cut across the floor and wall to the left. Guardi has clearly taken delight in depicting particular details, like the statue above the door on the left and the white cloth draped over the windowsill, and the hanging lantern opposite. Several decades earlier, Canaletto had introduced the device of using an archway to lead a viewer deeper into the picture – see Venice: Piazza San Marco and Venice: Piazza San Marco and the Colonnade of the Procuratie Nuove. But Guardi’s painting technique is different, as is the look of his work, with its thin layers of oil paint in pale tones.

The scene feels like a snapshot of a real moment in city life. The two men highlighted in the foreground give a coin to a beggar boy, while the woman in a splash of yellow walks away from us. The slice of pink wall framed by the arch encourage us to explore the buildings in the square. People climb the steps to the right and a pair suspend a blue cloth over a balcony to the left, softening the intersecting vertical and horizontal architectural lines. With its mixture of Gothic and classical buildings, the rich and the poor, dark shadows and brilliant sunlight, the picture captures the essence of Venice.

This is one of a number of Venetian paintings gifted to the National Gallery as part of the Salting Bequest. It arrived with several other pictures by Guardi, like Venice: Piazza San Marco and An Architectural Caprice with a Palladian Style Building, as well as work by Canaletto.