[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/canaletto.jpg?w=1024″]<\/p>\n
\n\tA previously unknown drawing by 18th<\/sup> century Italian painter and printmaker Canaletto is heading to auction in England next week with an estimate of $53,000 to $79,000, after two centuries apparently spent in a single family\u2019s collection.<\/p>\n \n\tThe drawing, a fanciful architectural scene called a capriccio<\/em>, will be on sale at Mallams auction house in Oxford on October 21. The work has been authenticated by Canaletto specialist Charles Beddington and dates to between 1746 and 1755, when the Venetian artist was working in England.<\/p>\n \n\tThe pen and ink work shows a ruined Renaissance arcade, with vines and trees invading the crumbling stonework and a ramshackle wooden bridge that looks to be held together by wishful thinking as much as it is by rope. A boatman maneuvers his skiff out from under an archway. Broken wheels and wheels and dilapidated fences scatter the shore. Unlike the meticulously observed views of Venice and London for which Canaletto is most famous for, his capricci<\/em> combined real and imaginary architecture to create scenes that never actually existed.<\/p>\n \n\tAn inscription on the back could mean that Canaletto originally gave the drawing away as a gift. It was probably acquired in the late 18th century by Charles Burney, the English composer and music historian, and has remained with his descendants ever since.<\/p>\n \n\tThe drawing may have been made as a preparatory study to show a prospective patron before Canaletto completed a related painting. That painting last appeared at Christie\u2019s in London in 1995, when it sold for \u00a3380,000 (then $577,000), according to Artnet News.<\/em><\/p>\n \n\tAlthough Canaletto is most closely associated with his views of Venice\u2019s canals and grand buildings, he began experimenting with capricci<\/em> in the late 1730s. The genre gave him considerably more freedom to invent architectural settings, mixing classical ruins, waterways, and figures into elaborate imaginary landscapes.<\/p>\n \n\tArt historian John Rolfe told Artnet News<\/em> that the works show Canaletto\u2019s powers of observation as well as his imagination. He said the artist\u2019s interest in the genre may have been influenced by a growing fascination with ruins, declining tourism in Venice during European wars, or his early experience working with his father, a theatrical set designer.<\/p>\n \n\tCanaletto\u2019s market has produced some spectacular results recently. In July 2025, his Venice, the Return of the Bucintoro on Ascension Day<\/em> sold for around $44 million at Christie\u2019s London, setting an auction record for the artist. Another painting depicting the same Venetian ceremony fetched $30.5 million in February 2026.<\/p>\n \n\tHis auction record for a capriccio<\/em> stands at $3.3 million, achieved at Christie\u2019s London in 1994.<\/p>\n \n\tThe newly discovered drawing will be offered at a rather more accessible price, giving collectors a rare chance to acquire a work by one of Venice\u2019s most celebrated painters.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n [analyse_source url=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/art-news\/market\/canaletto-drawing-discovered-mallams-auction-1234802470\/”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/canaletto.jpg?w=1024″] A previously unknown drawing by 18th century Italian painter and printmaker Canaletto is heading to auction in England next week with an estimate of $53,000 to $79,000, after two centuries apparently spent in a single family\u2019s collection. The drawing, a fanciful architectural scene called a capriccio, will be on sale at Mallams […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,226],"class_list":["post-2200829","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-artnews-com","tag-crawlmanager"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2200829","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2200829"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2200829\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2200829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2200829"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2200829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}