Dresden's Old Town rises across the calm Elbe beyond the long stone arches of the Augustus Bridge, with the great dome of the Frauenkirche near the center of the skyline. On the right stands the Catholic Court Church with its tall tower, reflected in the water. Boats are moored along the near bank, where small figures talk and work, and a tree and a house frame the left edge under a wide, pale sky. Bernardo Bellotto, trained by his uncle, the Venetian view painter Canaletto, whose name he also used, came to Dresden in 1747 at the invitation of Augustus III and painted this view in 1748 as his second work in the city; that year he was appointed court painter.

The church tower had not yet been built, so he painted it from the Italian architect's drawings. Scholars assume he used a camera obscura, probably sketching the view in sections. No other painted view has shaped the image of Augustan Dresden so strongly, and the museum says people speak of the "Canaletto view" as a matter of course. The canvas was restored in 2009–2011 with funds raised by the museum's Friends.

It is in the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister in Dresden.