A previously unknown drawing by 18th century Italian painter and printmaker Canaletto is heading to auction in England next week with an estimate of $53,000 to $79,000, after two centuries apparently spent in a single family’s collection.
The drawing, a fanciful architectural scene called a capriccio, will be on sale at Mallams auction house in Oxford on October 21. The work has been authenticated by Canaletto specialist Charles Beddington and dates to between 1746 and 1755, when the Venetian artist was working in England.
The pen and ink work shows a ruined Renaissance arcade, with vines and trees invading the crumbling stonework and a ramshackle wooden bridge that looks to be held together by wishful thinking as much as it is by rope. A boatman maneuvers his skiff out from under an archway. Broken wheels and wheels and dilapidated fences scatter the shore. Unlike the meticulously observed views of Venice and London for which Canaletto is most famous for, his capricci combined real and imaginary architecture to create scenes that never actually existed.
An inscription on the back could mean that Canaletto originally gave the drawing away as a gift. It was probably acquired in the late 18th century by Charles Burney, the English composer and music historian, and has remained with his descendants ever since.
The drawing may have been made as a preparatory study to show a prospective patron before Canaletto completed a related painting. That painting last appeared at Christie’s in London in 1995, when it sold for £380,000 (then $577,000), according to Artnet News.
Although Canaletto is most closely associated with his views of Venice’s canals and grand buildings, he began experimenting with capricci in the late 1730s. The genre gave him considerably more freedom to invent architectural settings, mixing classical ruins, waterways, and figures into elaborate imaginary landscapes.
Art historian John Rolfe told Artnet News that the works show Canaletto’s powers of observation as well as his imagination. He said the artist’s interest in the genre may have been influenced by a growing fascination with ruins, declining tourism in Venice during European wars, or his early experience working with his father, a theatrical set designer.
Canaletto’s market has produced some spectacular results recently. In July 2025, his Venice, the Return of the Bucintoro on Ascension Day sold for around $44 million at Christie’s London, setting an auction record for the artist. Another painting depicting the same Venetian ceremony fetched $30.5 million in February 2026.
His auction record for a capriccio stands at $3.3 million, achieved at Christie’s London in 1994.
The newly discovered drawing will be offered at a rather more accessible price, giving collectors a rare chance to acquire a work by one of Venice’s most celebrated painters.