From Bellini to Canaletto, the Royal Collection has one of the world’s most important holdings of Venetian painting, even allowing for the many masterpieces of Titian and Tintoretto sold during the Commonwealth. In this year’s Ashley Clarke Memorial Lecture, Desmond Shawe-Taylor, former Surveyor of the Queen’s Pictures, will explore the acquisition of Venetian painting by Charles I, Charles II and George III with Reynolds’ adverse judgement (quoted above) in mind. Did these monarchs consider Venetian painting to be of an ‘inferior class’, and, if so, how did it influence their display? Is there anything in the reception of Venetian painting which helps us to understand what ‘dazzling’ means in practice? It will suggest ways in which Venetian painting offered a constructive alternative aesthetic to ‘Raphaelism’.