Pietro Longhi (Venice 1700/2-1785)

Pietro Longhi began his career painting altarpieces and grand history paintings, having studied under Antonio Balestra and possibly Giuseppe Maria Crespi. By the second half of the 1730s, however, he began painting small-scale genre works, for which he is chiefly celebrated today. It was here that he found his true metier, excelling in the depiction of scenes of everyday life in Venice, from peasant street scenes to noble balls and fashionable concerts. These were novel images for the time and were immensely popular with a wide range of patrons and collectors.

The present scene is typical of his mature work in this genre. It depicts a fritole seller standing and watching as young boys cook the tasty fritole, a typical deep-fried Venetian pastry served mainly during Carnivale, in the street, while two ladies observe from the background. The inscription on the wall behind refers to Don Pietro Raimondi, the head priest of Santa Maria Formosa from 1733-52, thus giving us a terminus ante quem for the picture, which Pignatti dates to c. 1750 (op. cit, 1968, p. 93). It is possibly a pendant to the picture in the collection of the Marquess of Bath, Longleat, Wiltshire (see Pignatti, op. cit, 1974, no. 66), which depicts a similar street scene this time with a salad seller.