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Picture of the day
The Stonemason's Yard
The Stonemason's Yard is an early oil-on-canvas painting by Giovanni Antonio Canal, better known as Canaletto. It depicts an informal scene in Venice, looking over a temporary stonemason's yard in the Campo San Vidal and across the Grand Canal towards the church of Santa Maria della Carità. Painted in the mid- to late 1720s, it is considered one of Canaletto's finest works. Unsigned and undated, the painting is attributed and dated by stylistic clues. It seems to combine features of Canaletto's early and mature styles, for example in the use of two undercolours, and is a very early example of the use of Prussian blue in oil painting. The informal scene is thought to have been painted for a Venetian patron, rather than a foreign visitor to Venice. It is now in the collection of the National Gallery in London.Painting credit: Canaletto