[4] He was highly successful in England, thanks to the British merchant and connoisseur Joseph "Consul" Smith, whose large collection of Canaletto's works was sold to King George III in 1762.

[6] During his time in Rome, he worked with his father producing the scenery for two operas by the composer Alessandro Scarlatti, Tito Sempronio Greco and Turno Aricino which were performed at the Teatro Catranica during the carnival season of 1720.

In 1725, the painter Alessandro Marchesini, who was also the buyer for the Lucchese art collector Stefano Conti, had inquired about buying two more 'views of Venice', when the agent urged him to consider instead the work of "Antonio Canale... it is like Carlevaris, but you can see the sun shining in it.

Some of his later works do revert to this custom, as suggested by the tendency for distant figures to be painted as blobs of colour – an effect possibly produced by using a camera obscura, which blurs farther-away objects.

His large-scale landscapes portrayed the city's pageantry and waning traditions, making innovative use of atmospheric effects and strong local colours.

It was Swiny in the late 1720s who encouraged the artist to paint small topographical views of Venice with a commercial appeal for tourists and foreign visitors to the city.

[17] Smith also arranged for the publication of a series of etchings of "capricci" (or architectural phantasies) (capriccio Italian for fancy) in his vedute ideali,[9] but the returns were not high enough, and in 1746 Canaletto moved to London, to be closer to his market.

A large set of Canaletto works was also part of the collection of the Earls of Carlisle, however many were lost at the 1940 fire at Castle Howard and others were sold over the last century.

The last important venetian veduta at Castle Howard was by Bernardo Bellotto, A View of the Grand Canal Looking South from the Palazzo Foscari, which was sold at Sotheby's in July 2015 for £2.6 million.

Canaletto's views always fetched high prices, and as early as the 18th century Catherine the Great and other European monarchs vied for his grandest paintings.

The record price paid at auction for a Canaletto is £18.6 million for View of the Grand Canal from Palazzo Balbi to the Rialto, set at Sotheby's in London in July 2005.