A Canaletto view of Venice made £31.9 million at Christie's King Street, the highest price paid at auction for the artist, in an Old Masters evening that totalled £55.2 million.
A Canaletto view of Venice sold for £31.9 million at Christie’s King Street in St James’s on Tuesday 1 July 2025, a record at auction for the artist. It led an Old Masters evening that made £55.2 million.
Venice, the Return of the Bucintoro on Ascension Day, painted around 1732, hung in the parlour of 10 Downing Street while Robert Walpole lived there. His son sold it with its pendant in 1751 for £34.13. It last appeared at auction in Paris in 1993.
At 86cm by 138cm, it was larger than any other important Canaletto to reach the open market in twenty years. Before the sale Christie’s clad the King Street façade in a reproduction of it. The previous record, £18.6 million, belonged to its pendant.
Christie’s dates from 1766 and has held its sales at King Street since 1823. Of the 39 lots, 34 sold, and 99 per cent by value was the highest sell-through an Old Master sale had reached at Christie’s in London.
Willem Key’s portrait of Margret Halseber of Basel, known as the lady with two beards, made £882,000.