What to read after Bernardo Bellotto?

As part of the year in honour of Poland, the Louvre displays, from 5 October 2004 to 10 January 2005, a number of works depicting the city of Warsaw by Bernardo Bellotto, an eighteenth century Italian painter. Bellotto's set of views of the city of Warsaw is not only remarkably beautiful, but is also an incomparable iconographic and historical record. Bellotto was one of the greatest Italian city painters of the eighteenth century. The set is outstanding both for the large number of paintings on the same subject, and for its usefulness during the reconstruction of Warsaw after the Second World War, for it enabled the old city centre to be rebuilt as it was in the eighteenth century. This book contains all 23 of Bellotto's paintings from the museum in the Royal Castle, Warsaw, not just the 18 paintings exhibited in the Louvre. The reproductions are large and accompanied by details. The commentaries take an iconographic approach and draw on historical evidence; some works are compared with photos of