Save Venice Board member and Kimbell Art Museum Chief Conservator, Claire Barry, will lead a tour through the special exhibition, The Lure of Dresden: Bellotto at the Court of Saxony with Curator Nancy Edwards on Friday, April 5 for our Texas-based supporters.

Bernardo Bellotto (Venetian, c. 1721–80) is recognized as one of the greatest view painters in history, acquiring his fame in mid-18th-century Dresden as the court painter for the elector of Saxony, Frederick Augustus II. Over the course of a decade, Bellotto produced dozens of breathtaking depictions of the city and its environs, most measuring more than eight feet in width. The success and renown of these grand, comprehensive works would earn him prestigious commissions at prominent courts throughout Europe.

Bellotto’s magnificent paintings of Dresden are now in the collection of the Gemäldegalerie of the Dresden State Art Collections and are on loan to the Kimbell for the exhibition. They are accompanied by portraits and allegories of the elector and his queen, as well as view paintings of Venice and Saxony by Bellotto’s uncle and teacher Antonio Canaletto and Dresden court painter Alexander Thiele.

Photo: Bernardo Bellotto, Architectural Capriccio with a Self-portrait in the Costume of a Venetian Nobleman, c. 1762–65. Oil on canvas. Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Queen’s University, Kingston, Canada. Photo © Kimbell Art Museum.