This painting was purchased from a private collection in 1964.

Views of the canals were among the Milanese subjects most popular with artists in the second half of the 19th century, to the extent that were seen as representative of the Lombard capital. In keeping with a consolidated practice, Mantovani modelled himself on other artists when observing and depicting the urban landscape, favouring the 19th-century veduta painters to conjure a picturesque and nostalgic image of the city. Milanese subjects formed the basis for the artist’s commercial success and the establishment of his reputation on the local artistic scene, as attested by his many views of San Babila, the Verziere, Piazza Mercanti, and the Cathedral in the Rivolta Collection (now held by the Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Milan) which mark out his path from the 1930s on.

The work in the Collection, dated 1951, belongs to the artist’s late period, characterised by the repetitiveness of the subjects, the use of lighter, more liquid paint with results similar to those achieved with watercolour, and a pictorial gesture that became increasingly freer and, at times, haphazard, obliterating outlines to created a nebulous image. This stylistic development coincided with the artist’s resuming his exhibition activity, which had been interrupted from 1943 until 1953, by participating in the Esposizione Nazionale d’Arte Biennale di Brera e della Permanente with the painting, Vision of Venice, one of the many lagoon views the artist executed in his mature period. Following his death, in 1957, the 20th Biennale Nazionale di Milano displayed his painting Galleria Vittorio Emanuele in Milan.