Venetian Artist Canaletto Merged Fantasy and Architectural Detail in This Previously Unseen Sketch, Heading to Auction This Month

The 18th-century painter was a key practitioner of “capriccio” artworks, which blended scenes of everyday life with bold, out-of-place structures. This work was not known to exist for centuries and could now fetch up to $80,000

Sonja Anderson | Daily Correspondent

October 15, 2026 2:03 p.m.

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A previously unknown drawing by the 18th-century Venetian artist Canaletto is heading to auction in England. The pencil and brown ink sketch—only just authenticated—is one of Canaletto’s famous capricci, imaginative art works that blend detailed studies of real architecture into fantastical scenarios.

“His capriccio pictures form a small portion of Canaletto’s oeuvre, and this drawing includes many elements typical of this genre: monumental architectural structures, ruins, water and groups of figures, known as staffage,” art historian John Rolfe tells Artnet’s Richard Whiddington in an email. “They show brilliant observation, an eye for detail, but also imagination, fantasy and drama.”

Mallams, an auction house in Oxford, England, will sell the capriccio later this month. It was authenticated by Charles Beddington, an art dealer, historian and Canaletto expert. Canaletto likely composed this scene between 1746 and 1755, during his stint in England, as a sketch for a painting that was later auctioned by Christie’s in the 1990s.

Born in Venice in 1697, Giovanni Antonio Canal, more commonly known as Canaletto, was a vedutisto, or “view painter.” He became famous for highly detailed depictions of his hometown.

“Canaletto would often sketch out his scenes in a mathematical way, drawing the lines of the architecture in pencil with rulers before going over it in pen,” according to Katherine Gazzard, a curator at Royal Museums Greenwich. In fact, Canaletto’s cityscapes were so accurate that he was once accused by a biographer of tracing buildings with a camera obscura. (Researchers disproved this rumor with the help of infrared technology in 2017.)

The recently authenticated drawing depicts a ruined Renaissance-era arcade with two crumbling arches spanning a canal. Before them is a rickety wooden footbridge. Embedded in the riverbank silt is old debris, including a stray carriage wheel. Harsh light and shadow add depth to the scene, and everyday characters are scattered throughout.

“Silhouetted against the light sky, a mother and child step cautiously across the bridge,” Rolfe says in a video from Mallams. “Pose, character and costume, captured in a few quick strokes.”

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From the Italian word for capricious or whimsical, a capriccio is an architectural fantasy of the landscape genre. These artworks depict fabricated scenes amid real structures, such as columns from the Roman Forum or Venetian archways. Capricci became popular among Italian artists during the Baroque period, with practitioners including Francesco Guardi and Giovanni Paolo Panini.

While Canaletto’s fame is today associated with his more straightforward cityscape views—one such painting of Venice sold for $30.5 million earlier this year—“the painter himself may well have been more proud of his capricci, works of the imagination being held in higher esteem, particularly by his Italian contemporaries,” per Mallams.

An inscription on the back of the capriccio drawing says it is “a Present from Sig Canal d Canaletti,” suggesting the artist gave it away as a gift. It is thought to have then belonged to Charles Burney, an 18th-century British composer, and passed down in his family for generations.

“Original paintings and drawings by Canaletto rarely come to auction,” Rupert Fogden, Mallams’ director of fine art and pictures, tells the BBC’s Ethan Gudge. “We are expecting a significant amount of interest from both private collectors and institutions worldwide when it goes under the hammer this autumn.”

Sonja Anderson is a daily correspondent for Smithsonian magazine who covers art, archaeology and culture, from newly discovered artifacts to the latest art heists.