Pale morning haze hangs over Venice's Grand Canal under a broad, overcast sky. On the left stands a tall palace with rows of arched windows and balconies, its facade in two tones, beside a moored boat with a furled sail. Gondolas and a cargo boat with a red pennant glide over the water, and a few early risers gather on the right bank. Francesco Guardi often painted the Grand Canal; the J.

Paul Getty Museum dates this view to about 1768. The most prominent building is the two-toned Palazzo Bembo, whose owners, probably Guardi's patrons, appear on its upper balcony; the two tones mark a recent addition to the Renaissance palace. On the right he showed the church of San Geremia under renovation, a sign, the museum says, that he saw Venice as a city of constant change. The painting belonged to John Jaffé and then his widow, Anna.

The Vichy government looted it in 1942, and in 1944 it was sold for Hitler's planned museum in Linz. Recovered in Austria in 1945, it was returned to France and later sent to the Musée des Augustins in Toulouse. Restituted to Anna Jaffé's heirs in 2005, it was bought by the Getty at Christie's in London that July.

It is in the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles.