Throughout his career as a painter, Edward Cooke travelled extensively in Europe, visiting France, Holland, Italy, Spain, North Africa and Scandinavia. Paintings and drawings resulted from all his travels, but it is evident that the places that provided the strongest fascination for him besides the southern coastline of England were the beaches and estuaries of Holland and the topography of Venice and Italy.

Cooke’s first visit to Venice was in 1850 and he returned there a further nine times before his last visit in 1877. It was on his second trip to Venice in 1851 that Cooke met and became friends with the critic John Ruskin.

This view of the Piazza San Marco in Venice was made in the late evening, when the square was emptying of people, as the detailed inscription at the bottom of the drawing states: ‘Sept. 16. 1851. 10. o’clock - P.M’. The focus of the composition in the middle distance is the campanile of San Marco and the ‘loggetta del campanile’, with the square beyond to the right. On the left is the Biblioteca Marciana.