Piazza Santa Margherita by Canaletto
Canaletto was an Italian painter from 1697 until 1768. He was the son of a painter Bernardo Canal and became known for his paintings of Venice. Many of his landscapes of the city were said to be very evocative. His paintings became highly prized during the earlier part of his career. But later on, his paintings began to suffer from repetitiveness from doing the same paintings in England and Venice to appease his followers. His art began to suffer to the point that people began to suspect that his paintings were not really painted by him.
Near the end of his career, he started to paint in public to prove the paintings were his own, but he never managed to recover the reputation he once had. However, that never stopped his earlier work from fetching high prices from nobles and monarchs alike. This painting was of the Piazza Santa Margherita in Italy and features the character and style that Canaletto was known for.
The painting was part of the private collection of Jewish art dealer Jacques Goudstikker in the Netherlands. In 1940 he attempted to flee the Nazis but he ended up falling while on board the SS Bodegraven and fatally broke his neck. This left his massive art collection to be looted by the Nazis. More than 1,100 known paintings were taken but many others may have been part of the collection as well. Some of the art has been returned or payment given to the sole remaining heir of the Goudstikker fortune but this painting has yet to surface.