Portraits of a fantasy city

There are 13 Canalettos and 19 Guardis in our National Gallery; there are no paintings by either artist in the Rijksmuseum. The Dutch, having been painting landscape views for years, had enough of their own by the 18th century not to bother with Venice: canals were not exactly a novelty to them. So while the English went overboard for Venetian vedute, the Dutch politely ignored them. They can do so no longer, since a Venetian exhibition has opened on their doorstep.

Venezia! Art from the 18th Century is the third exhibition at Hermitage Amsterdam, the State Hermitage Museum’s latest European outpost in a converted 17th-century old folks’ home on the Amstel. Until work is complete, the space is small: just big enough to house a select display of 65 Venetian paintings, prints and drawings from the imperial collection started by Peter the Great, whose capital St Petersburg, reclaimed from the Neva swamps, has traditionally challenged Amsterdam for the title of Venice of the North.

For a show about Venice, this one actually includes surprisingly few views. It is in fact less about the appearance of the city than about its efforts to keep up appearances during a century which opened with the threat to its precious neutrality posed by the War of the Spanish Succession, and closed with the loss of its independence to the French. Venezia! depicts a fantasy city, the painted face La Serenissima turned to the world as her powers declined and her economy became increasingly dependent on that familiar post-imperial fall-back, tourism.

With her fabulous setting and famous theatres, casinos and brothels, 18th-century Venice was a natural party capital, but what turned her into a perfect playground for princes was her native gift for ceremonial. The Venetian calendar was a rolling programme of spectacular religious festivals, and the Republic was always ready to push the boat out for a foreign prince who visited out of season.