The Piazzetta, Venice

Holland was one of a number of artists who exploited a demand from mid-19th-century English collectors for small, colourful views of Venice. The fashion for such scenes was fostered by the brilliant depictions of the city in the late 1820s and 1830s by Bonnington and Turner. This view, taken from the corner of the Ducal Palace looking across the mouth of the Grand Canal towards the Dogana (Customs House) and church of Santa Maria Della Salute, is very similar to a well-known painting by Bonnington exhibited at the British Institution in 1828 and now in the Tate.