Canaletto, Views of London from Richmond House

(1747, by courtesy of the Trustees of the Goodwood Collection)
[click on the picture to enlarge it]

Canaletto, Views of London from Richmond House

(1747, by courtesy of the Trustees of the Goodwood Collection)
[click on the picture to enlarge it]

To suggest the multiple perspectives of a cityscape , some paintings were planned as pairs of companion pictures of identical sizes with balanced compositions, showing townscapes from a single viewpoint towards opposite directions. The practice prevailed for Edinburgh as well.

Canaletto painted two such series, the former from Richmond House in Westminster, with one view turned towards the garden and the other towards the river, the latter from Somerset House.

The view from Richmond House is also notable for its compositional effects.

Canaletto, Two Views from the Terrace of Somerset House : The City of London and the City of Westminster

(c.1750, The Royal Collection (c) 2000 Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II)
[click on the picture to enlarge it]

Canaletto, Two Views from the Terrace of Somerset House : The City of London and the City of Westminster

(c.1750,The Royal Collection (c) 2000 Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II)
[click on the picture to enlarge it]

Cityscapes as companion pictures modify the spectator’s distance, which may be the fairly close view the observer takes of each painting, or the more distant view of the two paintings simultaneously ; which acts on the depth of field, in Canaletto’s drawings for this pair of paintings and in Scott’s companion pictures, and eventually leads to Sandby’s wide angle views.