The Dancec. 1750
Pietro Longhi painted this in about 1750, aged about 43. It is now at the Art Institute of Chicago. More about this work
About this work
A work made of oil on canvas.
Description from the Art Institute of Chicago.
Pietro Longhi painted this in about 1750, aged about 43. It is now at the Art Institute of Chicago.
How it was made
- Oil paint
- Pigment ground in a drying oil, usually linseed. It dries slowly, so painters could blend on the canvas, build up thin translucent glazes, and rework a picture over weeks. Canvas replaced wooden panels in the 1500s because it is lighter and can be rolled.
Pietro Longhi
Italian, 1702–1785 · Born and died in Venice.
Pietro Longhi, born Pietro Falca, trained with Antonio Balestra and then in Bologna with Giuseppe Maria Crespi, who encouraged his turn from history painting to genre. From the 1740s he painted small, gently ironic scenes of Venetian life: patricians receiving visitors, masked ladies, dancing lessons, card games and curiosities shown to crowds. Admired by the playwright Carlo Goldoni, these pictures record the manners of the city in the last decades of the Republic.
Written by Ochre Editions.
Rights and the museum’s record
Public domain. The Art Institute of Chicago has dedicated this image to the public domain under CC0, so anyone may copy, adapt and use it, for any purpose, without asking. Our prints and files are reproductions made from the museum’s image; the museum doesn’t endorse them.
- Object number
- 1932.52
- Credit
- Courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago
- Type
- Painting
- Department
- Painting and Sculpture of Europe
- Licence
- CC0 1.0 Universal
- Museum record
- See it on the museum’s site
