Canaletto's new record: a view of Venice sells for nearly $40 million.

Canaletto's stunning view of Venice , 'The Return of the Bucintoro on Ascension Day' (c. 1732), topped Christie 's Old Masters evening sale during London Classical Week on Tuesday. It opened with an estimate of more than £20 million and eventually sold for £31.9 million ($43.9 million, €37.2 million), a new auction record for the artist . It had only appeared at auction twice in its 300-year history: in 1751 and 1993. The painting is in a remarkably good state of preservation. Inaccessible to scholars for much of its history, it has only recently been discovered that the painting hung in 10 Downing Street , where it was first recorded in 1736, in the collection of Britain's first prime minister, Sir Robert Walpole (1676-1745).

This illustrious early 18th-century provenance makes it, along with its replica of the Grand Canal, the earliest recorded work by the Venetian master hanging in an English house, a quarter of a century before King George III acquired the Canalettos from Consul Joseph Smith. Vastly ambitious in both scale and conception, this highly evocative view bears testimony to Canaletto's prodigious talent and rigorous technique, painted at the height of his career. It is his earliest known depiction of a subject to which he would return repeatedly, marking the starting point for Canaletto to paint such festivities.

This work hung alongside another view of the Grand Canal, looking northeast from the Balbi Palace to the Rialto Bridge . The two paintings remained together until the sale of the present work at Ader Tajan in 1993, where, appearing at auction for the first time in almost 250 years, it achieved a record price for an Old Master painting at auction in France. The exceptional painterly quality and state of preservation, together with the distinguished provenance of both paintings, meant that when the Grand Canal view sold in 2005, it achieved a world record price for the artist at auction, a title it still holds twenty years later. What was unknown when the present painting was last offered for sale is that both paintings share a remarkable early history, having belonged to the British Prime Minister, the great art patron and collector Sir Robert Walpole.

Their presence in Walpole's collection was first noted by the British art historian and Old Master expert Sir Oliver Millar (1923–2007), who found them referenced in the 1736 handwritten catalogue of paintings at 10 Downing Street and in the 1751 auction sale by Sir Robert's grandson, George Walpole; the handwritten copy of the sale is held in the National Art Library at the Victoria & Albert Museum.

How and when Sir Robert acquired them is unknown. It is possible that it was through his son Edward, who was sent to Venice on a mission to acquire works of art between January 1730 and January 1731, although both views can be dated, on stylistic grounds, to around 1731–1732 and thus slightly later than Edward's Venetian stay. Although undoubtedly facilitated by Edward's connections in Venice, the purchase of the paintings must have been prompted by the refurbishment of the Downing Street residence between 1732 and 1735, after King George II had offered it to Sir Robert Walpole in 1732. The British architect William Kent gutted the interiors of two adjacent properties and joined them to create a new complex of sixty rooms. Sir Robert and his wife settled there in 1735, remaining there until Walpole left office in 1742, at which time he moved his picture collection to Houghton Hall.

The Feast of the Ascension of Christ, celebrated on the fortieth day after Easter Sunday, was the most spectacular of all Venetian festivities and was frequently discussed by visitors and travelers. The Bucintoro, the official galley of the Doge of Venice and symbol of the Serenissima, was used exclusively on this day. The model depicted here, the last to be built at the Arsenale, was designed by Stefano Conti and decorated by the sculptor Antonio Corradini, identifiable by the lion—the symbol of the city of Venice—on the prow and the figure of Justice. Accompanied by the city authorities, the Doge sailed to the Lido on the Bucintoro and threw a ring into the water, a symbolic act representing Venice's union with the sea. It was a ceremony that brought together the entire city and remained a key date in the Venetian calendar until the fall of the Republic in 1797. The Bacino di San Marco , where the scene is set, was the usual, and certainly the most exciting, arrival point for visitors to Venice.

Canaletto's masterful views , replete with detail and displaying unparalleled atmospheric effects, made him the most successful veduta painter of his time and influenced later generations of landscape painters. In this work, his technique is extremely assured. Vivid accents of color guide the viewer's eye around the composition, with touches of vibrant red peppering it throughout. Canaletto seems to have mastered the formula for creating the effect of rippling water, like pale arcs across the surface of the lagoon. The artist demonstrates great lightness in depicting figures in motion, even on different planes. The scene possesses an ethereal and spontaneous atmosphere, yet Canaletto's technique is highly precise, and his architecture meticulously constructed, with each building delineated and detailed with rigorous accuracy. It demonstrates great sensitivity to changing weather conditions. The image is suffused with the warm hue of an early summer day. The lagoon is populated with elegantly dressed figures, reclining in gondolas; The Bucintoro, moored, stands majestically in the background, and a crowd of curious people gather on the dock in the distance.