12 Facts About Pietro Longhi

Pietro Longhi was a Venetian painter of contemporary genre scenes of life.

Pietro Longhi was born in Venice in the parish of Saint Maria, first child of the silversmith Alessandro Falca and his wife, Antonia.

Pietro Longhi adopted the Longhi last name when he began to paint.

Pietro Longhi was initially taught by the Veronese painter Antonio Balestra, who then recommended the young painter to apprentice with the Bolognese Giuseppe Maria Crespi, who was highly regarded in his day for both religious and genre painting and was influenced by the work of Dutch painters.

Pietro Longhi was married in 1732 to Caterina Maria Rizzi, by whom he had eleven children.

Pietro Longhi's first major documented work was an altarpiece for the church of San Pellegrino in 1732.

That this puppet-like quality was an intentional conceit on Pietro Longhi's part is attested by the skillful rendering of figures in his earlier history paintings and in his drawings.

From 1763 Pietro Longhi was Director of the Academy of Drawing and Carving.

Pietro Longhi had not only departed the world of grand mythology of history that often allured the Venetian nobility, but taken residence in its intimate present, as few painters in Venice had ever done.

Pietro Longhi painted for the picture-loving Venetians their own lives in all their ordinary domestic and fashionable phases.

In numerous paintings, Pietro Longhi depicts masked figures engaging in various acts from gambling to flirting.

For example, in the foreground of Pietro Longhi's painting The Meeting of the Procuratore and His Wife is a woman being greeted by a man that is presumed to be her husband.