Bellotto was born in
Venice, the son of Lorenzo Antonio Bellotto and Fiorenza Canal, sister of the famous Canaletto, and studied in his uncle's workshop. At the end of 1761, Bellotto returned to Dresden. When King Augustus III of Poland, also
Elector of Saxony, who usually lived in Dresden, died in 1763, Bellotto's work became less important in Dresden. As a consequence, he left Dresden to seek employment in
Saint Petersburg at the court of
Catherine the Great. On his way to Saint Petersburg, however, Bellotto accepted an invitation in 1764 from Poland's newly elected King
Stanisław August Poniatowski to become his court painter in
Warsaw from 1768. Here he remained some 16 years, for the rest of his life, as court painter to the King, for whom he painted numerous views of the Polish capital and its environs for the
Royal Castle in Warsaw, complement of the great historical paintings commissioned by Poniatowski from
Marcello Bacciarelli. His initial commissions included painted decoration of the
Ujazdów Castle between 1767 and 1770, of which a study of illusionistic vault is the only preserved example of profuse decoration lost in 1784 during the reconstruction of the castle into military barracks. In 1769 the painter and his son Lorenzo (1744–1770) accomplished another large royal commission – fourteen views of Rome, ancient and papal, based on the collection of etchings by
Giovanni Battista Piranesi entitled
Vedute di Roma. The collection was dispersed in the early nineteenth century and today various paintings can be admired in different museums in Russia –
The Roman Forum as seen from the Capitol to the south-east and
Piazza della Rotonda with Pantheon (
Pushkin Museum, Moscow),
View of the Piazza Navona (Nizhny Novgorod State Art Museum),
View of S. Maria Maggiore (Far Eastern Art Museum, Khabarovsk) and in private collections. His paintings of Warsaw, 26 vedute painted between 1770 and 1780 to embellish the so-called
Panorama Room (later
Canaletto Room) at the Royal Castle in Warsaw and later relocated to Russia, were
restored to the Polish Government in 1921 and were used in rebuilding the city after its
near-complete destruction by German troops during World War II. . Bellotto's early work bears strong features of his uncle's style, becoming more individual and distinguished in later years with clear inspiration of
Dutch landscape painting with massed clouds, cast shadows and rich foliage. His colouring is colder and characterized by a steely grey. The last period of the artist's work is assessed as distinct from the earlier stages with emphasis on the immediacy of observation, striving for a generic treatment of staffage, ability to capture the atmosphere of the place and visible transformation of his painting which become more colorful with warmer tones. For the first time he also undertook historical subjects including
The Election of Stanisław August (1778) for the King and
Entry of Jerzy Ossoliński into Rome in 1633 (1779) commissioned by
Józef Maksymilian Ossoliński. Bellotto created a school of painting which was later continued and developed by
Zygmunt Vogel and
Marcin Zaleski. Bernardo Bellotto died in Warsaw in 1780 and was buried in Capuchin Church at
Miodowa Street. His younger brother was named Pietro Bellotto (1725 – c. 1805) and after collaborating with Canaletto and his brother, moved to France, where he was known as
le Sieur Canalety and
Pietro Bellotti di Caneletty. The brother was also referred to as
Belloti,
Belloty,
Beloty, or
Bellottit. ==Works by subject==