Louis Aston Knight, son of well-known American painter Daniel Ridgway Knight, was a celebrated artist in his own right. He studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Art and the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Among his teachers were Meissonier, Gleyre, Renoir and Sisley, not to mention his father. Knight, who lived in Europe, showed at the Paris Salon and received awards in several European exhibitions. When collectors think of Knight, they think of his French landscapes. But he traveled through Europe and has many views of Venice, much like the one pictured, to his credit. His technique owes much to the Impressionists, and he enjoyed a great success in the United States from just before World War I into the 1930s.