Sotheby’s Conduit Street Gallery holds an exhibition next week of modern artists’ views of Venice to mark the 400th anniversary of St George’s, the Anglican church in La Serenissima.

St George’s has its origins in the early 17th century, when Nathaniel Fletcher, the first Anglican chaplain, accompanied Sir Henry Wotton, King James I’s Ambassador to the Venetian Republic. The present church, a former Murano glass warehouse, was established in Campo S. Vio in 1892, a gift of the diplomat and archaeologist Sir Henry Layard.

The artists, who include several Royal Academicians, travelled to Venice last year. Tim Llewellyn, who organised the exhibition, said: “We wanted to make an exhibition that would show that Venice is a sufficiently complex subject with a wide enough appeal to provide inspiration to artists representing quite different generations, interests and approaches.”

The resulting works are paintings in oil and watercolour, drawings, prints, photographs and sculptures in bronze, steel, resin, glass and ceramic.

The Rev John-Henry Bowden, the current chaplain of St George’s, says that his church needs more than €500,000 (£350,000) to repair the roof, stonework and interior — “Our priority,” he says, “has to be the roof, which already leaks in storms.”

The anniversary appeal is chaired by Lady Clarke, the president of Venice in Peril, under the patronage of Sir Ivor Roberts, the President of Trinity College, Oxford, and until recently British ambassador to Italy, and the Right Rev Geoffrey Rowell, Bishop of Gibraltar in Europe.

Britain set up a consulate in Venice after the end of Napoleonic rule of the city and the Congress of Vienna. When Italy was unified in 1870 the Rev John Davies Mereweather settled in Venice and held Anglican services in his flat in Palazzo Contarini-Corfu until 1888, when a committee of English residents was formed to re-establish a permanent chaplaincy in Venice.

The present St George’s Church was dedicated in 1892, and Anglican services have been held there in English ever since, apart from the Second World War. Year-round services resumed under the chaplaincy of Canon Victor Stanley in the 1960s and are still held every Sunday.

Venice: City of Dreams? is at Sotheby’s, Conduit Street Gallery, 34-35 New Bond Street, London W1, January 15-19, 9.00 am to 4.30 pm; www.stgeorgesvenice.com