View of Pirna with the Fortress of Sonnenstein

Well trained by his uncle, Canaletto, Bernardo Bellotto quickly established his own reputation as a gifted view painter. By 1746 he was appointed court painter to the elector of Saxony in Dresden, who commissioned him to produce cityscapes. Bellotto was subsequently asked to create 11 large-scale paintings of the nearby town of Pirna; the present picture is a reduced but otherwise exact replica of one of those celebrated works. Exalted in Bellotto’s cold, crystalline light, the fortress of Sonnenstein presides over the scene from its hilltop. In the left foreground, townsfolk congregate at a small obelisk that bears the arms of Saxony.