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Much of the stately ritual and pomp so central to public life in Venice took place against the backdrop of the palace of the doge, the elected, chief magistrate of the Venetian Republic. Here, he receives ambassadors in the Sala del Collegio, a luxurious salon with splendid 16th-century paintings by Veronese and Tintoretto.Canaletto was the most important townscape painter of the 18th century, but he rarely painted interiors. This view is based on one of his 12 compositions drawn for an engraved series on the ceremonies associated with Doge Alvise Mocenigo IV, elected in 1763. Francesco Guardi painted a series based on these compositions, and there are additional paintings by other unidentified hands of individual views.For more information on this painting, please see Federico Zeri's 1976 catalogue no. 447, pp. 556-558.