18th Century
This room is dedicated to 18th-century European
painting. The Venetian School is represented strongly by
Canaletto’s Old Walton Bridge and The
Bucintoro at the Molo on Ascension Day and Tiepolo’s
sketches for the ceilings of villas. Hogarth’s conversation
piece A Fishing Party (‘A Fair Angler’) and
Gainsborough’s portrait of An Unknown Couple in a
Landscape represent the English fashion for being portrayed
against the backdrop of land or estate, while the French Watteau’s
Le Plaisir du Bal likewise portrays the upper classes
conversing and at play.