Title: Painter in His Studio

Artist: Pietro Longhi

The Painter in His Studio About 1741–44 Pietro Longhi Italian, 1701–1785 Oil on canvas Longhi invites the viewer into a painter’s studio, where the artist, surrounded by an array of his tools and props, creates a faithful likeness of a typical Venetian lady sitting for her portrait. Her costumed companion has removed his mask, which allowed him to pass incognito in public during the free-spirited months of Carnival. Longhi’s depiction of the act of painting as an intimate scene of contemporary life contrasts with Tiepolo’s Apelles and Campaspe (nearby), which translates a similar scene into the ancient world’s idiom of heroic grandeur.