Вид Венеции

20 May 1722

Born

c. 1735

Joins the workshop of his uncle Canaletto

The son of Lorenzo Antonio Bellotto and Fiorenza Canal, Canaletto's sister, Bernardo loved drawing from an early age and around 1735 entered his uncle's Venetian workshop as a pupil and assistant, later becoming his collaborator. He stayed there until the early 1740s (according to some sources, from 1738 to 1743).

July 1747

Moves to Dresden at the invitation of Augustus III

At the end of 1746 Augustus III, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland and a great lover of Venetian painting, invited Bellotto to Dresden, and in July 1747 the painter moved there with his wife and son. He was appointed court painter, probably through the mediation of Francesco Algarotti, at a salary of 1,750 thalers a year.

1756

The Seven Years' War: Saxony under Prussian occupation

With the outbreak of the Seven Years' War, Pirna and Königstein became battlegrounds, Prussian troops occupied Saxony, and the painter's patron Augustus III went into exile in Warsaw.

1764

On the way to St Petersburg, accepts a post in Warsaw

Finding no place for himself in Dresden, Bellotto set out to seek employment at the court of Catherine the Great in St Petersburg, but on the way accepted an invitation from Poland's newly elected King Stanisław August Poniatowski to become his court painter in Warsaw. By some accounts this was in 1764, with the post beginning in 1768; by others he was the King's court painter from 1767.

17 November 1780

Died