Westminster Bridge from the North

View of Westminster Bridge depicts Old Westminster Bridge, built between 1739-47 and officially opened in 1750, and dates to the mid-18th century. It is similar to a View of Westminster Bridge, by Joseph Nicholls (active 1726-55), in the University of Greenwich collection. However, it probably derives from Westminster Bridge from the North with the Lord Mayor’s Procession on the Thames, 29 October 1746, dated 1747, by Giovanni Antonio Canaletto (1697-1768), in the Yale Center for British Art. The V&A painting adopts a similar view point to Canaletto’s work high above the water, showing both banks, and therefore impossible to see in reality - an archaic way of depicting a bridge, drawing upon the tradition in 17th-century Dutch painting of showing a bridge end-to-end.