A drawing of an invented view, known as a capriccio. The drawing shows a ruined arch on the edge of a lagoon. Two figures are seated on the left hand side of the composition, and two other figures wearing elaborate headdress are shown standing in the foreground. The scene is enclosed within a ruled ink border line.

The arch appears to be entirely imaginary; while its proportions echo Roman arches such as those of Constantine or Septimius Severus, the details are a confection of classical and Renaissance motifs. To the left is a stumpy obelisk; in the centre distance is another arch, and to the right the view opens onto a lagoon, with a domed church on the horizon. Kozakiewicz suggested that the composition may have been inspired by Luca Carlevarijs's Capriccio of a harbour, then in Smith's collection and presumably well known by Canaletto.

An exact facsimile of the pen drawing (i.e. in outline only) is found among the Bellotto drawings at Darmstadt (AE 2221). The composition was used in a pair of painted capricci by Bellotto in Asolo, the arch and obelisk in one, the two distant ships in the other. This establishes that Canaletto's most mannered, looping calligraphic style of pen-work, seen in many of the small capricci, must have been formulated no later than 1745-6, when Canaletto left Venice for England and he and Bellotto parted for the last time.

Catalogue entry adapted from Canaletto in Venice, London, 2005