The two works are believed to have been painted for an English patron for whom Joseph Smith, the merchant, collector and later consul in Venice, acted as agent.

Records survive of the payments John Russell, 4th Duke of Bedford, made between 1734-6 to Smith’s brother and London agent, John Smith, for the celebrated Canaletto series at Woburn.

It has been suggested by London dealer and Canaletto expert Charles Beddington that the current pictures were components of a set of four canvases commissioned in 1733 by the Duke of Bedford’s sister, Elizabeth Countess of Essex and dispatched by Smith the following year. Her husband, William Capel 3rd Earl of Essex, was appointed ambassador at Turin in 1732.

The choice of subjects suggests that Lady Essex may well have seen the two related works already ordered by her brother while these were still in Venice.

By 1939, the pictures were owned by Douglas Glass (1881-1944), the only son of James George Henry Glass (1843-1911), a distinguished engineer and a director of the Bengal Nagpur Railway Company, whose interest in Italy is reflected in the fact that he died in Naples rather than in his English residence.