In 2000, the Denver Art Museum received a painting titled Venice: The Molo from the Bacino di S. Marco from the foundation of a deceased local collector. Covered in grime, the work was attributed to a student of the Italian 18th century painter Giovanni Antonio Canal (1697-1768), better known as Canaletto, and placed in storage.
In 2007, Timothy Standring, the museum’s curator of painting and sculpture, noticed the canvas while doing routine inventory. Standring saw past the layers of discoloration to the masterful brushstrokes and detailed figures that lay beneath the grime. Intrigued, Standring embarked on a Canaletto-based research project that eventually brought him to London to meet with Charles Beddington, a renowned expert on the artist. After their meeting, during which Standring presented a photograph of the painting, Beddington agreed to visit the Denver Art Museum to examine the painting in person.
In January 2012, Beddington arrived in the United States and identified the work as an authentic Canaletto; he also dated the painting 1724, meaning it is one of the artist’s earliest undocumented works. The museum soon received a grant from the European Fine Art Fair Restoration Fund to restore the painting, a job that was delegated to James Squires, the institution’s associate conservator of paintings. Over 100 hours of restoration later, Squire’s uncovered the masterpiece that was there along. The painting, which features a brightly colored Venetian scene, is currently on view at the Denver Art Museum.
