Canaletto, Joseph Smith, and the

McSwiney's first letter to the Duke of Richmond mentioning Canaletto as a view painter, dated 28 November 1727, refers to the difficulty of getting pictures from the artist in reasonable time and adds, "by the assistance of a particular friend of his, I get once in two months a piece sketch'd out and a little time after finished, by force of bribery." 1 Although not mentioned by name, the "friend" must have been Joseph Smith, long resident in as a successful businessman and collector. The first documentary record of Smith's association with Canaletto is dated two years later, but by that time the first, and probably the greatest, commission he gave the artist must have been almost or completely finished. This was for six very large of the Piazza S. Marco and the Piazzetta, NoTEs four upright and two of landscape format, possibly all for the decoration of a

1. Finberg, "Canaletto in ," 1920-21, p. 23. single room. For each there was a which may well have 2. Vivian, Il Console Smith, 1971, and, for a brief account, Levey, been the basis of a discussion between Canaletto and Smith as to the form Later Italian Pictures, 1964, pp. 28-35. Among painters of the-then-modern Venetian school, Francesco Zuccarelli the painting would take. Two of the paintings are shown as well as the two (1702-1788) and Sebastiano and are splendidly corresponding (cat. nos. 28 and 29, 88 and 8g). represented. It should be remembered that Smith also owned The paintings in this series are the earliest works by Canaletto in the many Flemish and Dutch paintings, uneven in quality but including, under an attribution to Frans van Mieris, the great collection of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth IT. With the sale in 1762 of Smith's Vermeer, The Music Lesson. collection to George ill, the Crown holdings of paintings, drawings, and 3· Parker, Drawings oJCanaletto, 1948; Levey, Later Italian prints by Canaletto came to be absolutely preeminent. 2 The artist has been Pictures, 1964, pp. 31-33, 54-68, nos. 367-420; Millar and Miller, in Canaletto, 198o; and Miller, Fifty Drawings by brilliantly served by those who have catalogued the Royal Collection: Sir Karl Canaletto, 1983. Parker, Sir Michael Levey, Sir Oliver Millar, and Charlotte E. Miller. 3