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Carlevaris is not the inventor of this veduta: long before, in the 1660s to be precise, the French artist Israel Silvestre made a print of roughly the same view. The Venetian master is undoubtedly responsible for the sense of grandeur about the scene, achieved by raising the vantage point and adding the panorama on the left. Carlevaris often employed this device - especially to represent diplomatic receptions, for which he was famous - shifting the point of view slightly each time. He situated these events in front of the Ducal Palace, where the newly appointed ambassadors presented their credentials to the Doge and Senate, the climax of a ceremony that lasted altogether several days. The Entry of the Earl of Manchester into the Doge's Palace, which the Earl himself commissioned in 1707, is one of the masters best-known works in this series and also one of his two earliest veduta.
The Reception of Cardinal César d'Estrées represents a similar event, so similar, in fact, that until recently this canvas was assumed to be an autograph variant of the English reception. Judging from the staffage, however, it was not a repetition. Unlike the Entry of the Earl of Manchester a French, not an English mission is shown here, witness the fleur-de-lis on the Ambassador's gondolas in the left foreground. Furthermore the composition draws attention to the prelate in the midst of the crowd; since only one French ambassador to Venice held an ecclesiastical office - Cardinal d'Estrées - the reception must be his.
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