Many of Canaletto’s etchings take their subject matter from the countryside of the Venetian mainland. The Brenta canal towards Padua is scattered with locks, watermills, picturesque gardens, and the country villas of the Venetian nobility. The bare tree interrupting the centre of the composition recalls the earlier landscapes of Domenico Campagnola (c.1500–64) and Titian (c.1490–1576).