View of Verona (after Bernardo Bellotto)
- Artist: Bernardo Bellotto
- Date: 1768 - 1771
- Medium: oil on canvas
- Museum: The Courtauld Gallery
- Collection record: The Courtauld Gallery website
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About this artwork
This is “View of Verona (after Bernardo Bellotto)” by Bernardo Bellotto. The canvas, painted between 1768 and 1771, shows the city’s iconic piazza and the towering cathedral, rendered with precise linear perspective and a cool, almost clinical palette that Bellotto favored. Notice how the light glints off the stone walls, creating a subtle play of shadow that brings depth to the scene. His brushwork is tight and controlled, giving the architecture crisp edges while still allowing a sense of atmospheric distance.
Bellotto was a master of cityscapes, often working for the Habsburg court. In this piece, he captures Verona not just as a landmark but as a living urban space, with narrow alleys and bustling traffic hinting at daily life. The oil medium lets him layer glazing techniques, achieving that soft luminosity that makes the sky appear almost translucent.
Overall, the painting invites the viewer to step back in time to late eighteenth‑century Verona, experiencing the city’s grandeur and quiet rhythm through Bellotto’s meticulous, almost photographic eye.
See it in person
View of Verona (after Bernardo Bellotto) hangs in The Courtauld Gallery at Somerset House, London. Point your phone at any artwork there and audioguide.london plays a free audio guide in six languages — no app download needed.
