The Grand Canal

A topographical cabinet card showing a view of the Grand Canal in Venice, near the Ponte di Rialto. The two buildings in the background are, on the far right, the Ca' Foscari, and, in the centre, the Palazzo Giustinian, which in the mid-ninteenth century was the last residence of Princess Louise Marie Thérèse of France, a duchess and regent of Parma.

Photographed by Carlo Ponti of Venice.

Carlo Ponti studied photography in Paris in the 1840s. In 1852, he obtained a license to produce and sell photographs in Venice. He ran the first of the big photographic businesses in the city, producing albums with architectural views of great artistic sensitivity. He was also the inventor of camera lenses suitable for panoramic photography.