|
Pietro Longhi was born in
Venice in the parish of Saint Maria, the
first child of the silversmith Alessandro
Falca and his wife, Antonia; the painter adopted the Longhi surname when he began to paint.
Longhi was initially taught by the Veronese
painter Antonio
Balestra (1666 – 1740), who then
recommended the young painter to apprentice
with the Bolognese artist,
Giuseppe Maria Crespi
(1665 – 1747), who was highly
regarded in his day for both religious paintings
and genre painting.
Unlike most view-painters at the same time,
normally forced to seek foreign patrons,
Longhi mainly worked for local patrons and
collectors, including the noble families of
Grimani, Barbarigo, and Manin. He
prepared Pietro Longhi painting by making careful
preparatory sketches.
In later life he also produced two
interesting cycles of Pietro Longhi paintings. One was a
series showing the Seven Sacraments while
the other depicted Hunters in the valley.
Both are now in the Pinacoteca
Querini-Stampalia in Venice.
Pietro Longhi painter occasionally painted more than one
version of his own compositions, and these
again were often duplicated by pupils and
followers.
Alessandro Longhi (1733-1813),
the son of Pietro, was a successful
portraitist.
Among early Pietro Longhi paintings are some
altarpieces and religious themes. In 1734, the painter completed frescoes in the walls and
ceiling of the hall in Ca' Sagredo,
representing the Death of the giants. His
work from then on would lead him to be
viewed in the future as similar to the
Venetian
William
Hogarth (1697 – 1764), Pietro Longhi painting
subjects and events of everyday life in
Venice. These were gallant interior scenes
that reflect on the 18th century's turn
towards private life and the bourgeois. |
Toperfect Group