A Genre Scene by Longhi

Author(s): Margaret D. Sloane

Source: The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin , Mar., 1936, Vol. 31, No. 3 (Mar.,
1936), pp. 49+51-53
Published by: The Metropolitan Museum of Art

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 BULLETIN OF THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART

Church
Church in in
Boston,
Boston,
LaFargeLaFarge
was recognized A GENRE SCENE BY LONGHI
was recognized
as
as an
anoutstanding
outstanding figure figure
in American
in American
art, art,
and
andthat
that rank
rank
was was
nevernever
disputed disputed Genre painting, usually associated
through- through-
out the last three decades of the nineteenth the Northern schools, is rare in Italy.
century and the first of the twentieth. As Among the few Italians who practiced this
painter, as mural decorator, and as designerart is Pietro Longhi, a Venetian of the
of stained glass his reputation was assuredeighteenth century and one of the most
everywhere in America, and in his own daycharming of all genre painters. Longhi must
he was perhaps more widely known in have realized at an early age where his
Europe than any other contemporary Ameri- talents lay, for he left his first master,
can artist, for in Europe Whistler-and laterAntonio Balestra, an academician of the
Sargent-was regarded as a European more old school, for the studio of Giuseppe Maria
often than as an American. Furthermore, as Crespi, in Bologna. Crespi had gained a con-
an illustrator of books he was pre-eminent siderable reputation not by painting am-
among his American contemporaries, some bitious historical or religious scenes but
of his finest compositions having been drawn through small easel pictures which por-
upon the engraver's block. And finally, his trayed contemporary life. Here was a type
books of travel in the South Seas and Japan, of art that was sympathetic to the young
like his lecture on Hokusai, were great land- Longhi, and its principles strongly affected
marks in the development of art apprecia- him.
tion in this country. His occasional essays When painting the scenes of the Sacra-
and reviews made opinion as did few of ments now in the Galleria Querini Stam-
their time, and no complete history could be palia, in Venice, Longhi was probably fa-
written of his day in America that did not miliar with the famous series Crespi painted
take account of his critical influence. for Cardinal Ottoboni. A comparison of the
The exhibition should afford a most signifi- two series brings out the relation between
cant retrospect of taste in the late nineteenth the artists. Both treated the Sacraments as
century and the early twentieth, a period experiences familiar to the ordinary man
which is now almost far enough away to and both painted what they observed, but
belong to history, for the changes which there is a marked difference in the spirit of
have come into American art in the quarter the scenes. Longhi was not interested in the
century since the death of LaFarge have seriousness of Crespi's representations and
probably been more profound than those did not care to use his master's dark shad-
in any period of equal length. ows. Longhi's scenes are gay in mood and
In another way it is fitting that the Metro- light in color. They are loaded neither with
politan Museum should offer this exhibition. emotion nor with thought. They are true to
John LaFarge was chosen at the meeting the character of the Venetian world which
held in the Union League Club on Novem- he recorded. Longhi's style was accepted
ber 23, 1869, as one of the Committee of with delight by the society in which he
Fifty to plan an art gallery in New York. lived. The Pisani family made him the head
As a result of the deliberations of that com- of their art school. He was chosen by the
mittee the Metropolitan Museum was in- Senate a member of the Venetian Academy
corporated on April 13, i870; and LaFarge of Painting, of which Tiepolo was director.
was a member of the Corporation from the Until the age of eighty-three he continued
beginning, a Fellow for Life from I876, and to serve his contemporaries with bewitch-
a Patron (now called Fellow in Perpetuity) ing little pictures describing their lives.
from 1882. Later, in I892 and again in I893, The Meeting by Longhi1 has for many
he conducted courses on art in the Museum, years been a familiar painting in the Mu-
and his lectures, collected and published in seum. Lent in 1914 by Henry Walters of
1895 as Considerations on Painting, became Baltimore, it was exhibited in the galleries
one of the most distinguished of the books
Acc. no. 36.16. Oil on canvas. H. 24 in., w.
which molded American taste and apprecia- I9\4 in. Shown this month in the Room of Recent
tion forty years ago. H. E. WINLOCK. Accessions.

5I

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PUBLISHED MONTHLY PRICE TWENTY CENTS

BULLETIN OF
THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM
OF ART
VOLUME XXXI NEW YORK, MARCH, 1936 NUMBER 3

THE MEETING BY PIETRO LONGHI

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 BULLETIN OF THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART

until recently, when it was sold2 by the

so obvious. A seated lady in splendid attire
estate of Mr. Walters to Samuel H. Kress, receives a gentleman, who bends graciously
who has now very generously presented it toward her. Behind, watching rather anx-
to the Museum. It is especially gratifying iously, is a man, probably the lady's cicisbeo,
that The Meeting should have a permanent who in those days served in the double ca-
place in the collection, as the Museum pacity of steward and lover. In the back-
owns three other pictures of the same series.3
ground are two pairs of masked couples, ob-
This series is said to have been painted for viously listening in. There is a certain ten-
the Gambardi family of Florence and origi-sion in the situation, and the moment must
nally to have contained twenty scenes.4 At be one of importance. The Meeting was
the death of the last surviving Gambardi engraved by Joseph Flipart,5 a French en-
the set was divided. Some of the paintings graver who reproduced several paintings by
were bequeathed to the Marchese Freschi Longhi, and also made prints after Boucher
of Padua and were eventually purchased byand other French masters. Under the en-
the Brera Gallery, Milan, and the National graving is the verse from which one gathers
Gallery, London. The rest of the series was that the scene represents a meeting of hus-
left to Count Miari de' Cumani of Padua, band and wife after some mishap or possibly
and of these six are in the collection of a reconciliation:
Lionello Perera, New York, and four in the
"The tender wife of a worthy cavalier,
Metropolitan Museum.
A lady noble of heart and birth,
Our scenes are similar in size, type, and
execution. They have a brilliance and deli-Sees her husband and receives him joyfully,
Thanks fate, and blesses love."
cacy seen only in Longhi's finest works, an
instantaneous quality and a clarity of per- It is always tempting to conjure up what
ception which give them reality. Longhi is
preceded the event depicted in such a scene
not deeply concerned with individualizing and what followed after. It is interesting to
his characters, but they live by their alert-
search for explanation in the numerous plays
ness and vivacity, by their actions and of Carlo Goldoni, a prolific and versatile
gestures, and by their surroundings and writer, the leading dramatist of his day, and
their dress. Above all they exist by meansa close friend and great admirer of Longhi.
of the situations which they create, for But even though one may not find evidences
Longhi describes specific episodes. In Theof direct collaboration, it is obvious that be-
Letter he shows not merely a shop where tween these two artists there existed a
women are engaged in making hats but markedthe similarity in outlook and intent.6
very moment when, the matron having Both Goldoni and Longhi turned from
the conventions which had ruled their pred-
fallen asleep, a messenger takes the oppor-
tunity to present a note to a young girl.ecessors. Goldoni departed from the arti-
Again, in The Temptation a girl is led byficial
an and unchangeable type of character,
old woman to the room where a finely pow-such as Scaramouche and Pantaloon, which
the commedia dell' arte required. Longhi,
dered gentleman is just drinking his coffee,
and in The Visit a gentleman plays with a his unsuccessful effort to represent The
after
Fall of the Giants in the Sagredo Palace
dog-interrupting a lady's more serious pre-
occupation with her book and with the (1734), abandoned the grand manner. Both
priest seated at her left. artists chose as their subjects incidents in
The subject of The Meeting, which has the captivating world in which they lived
now been presented to the Museum, is not and so present to us today glimpses of the
2 At the American Art Association, Jan. Io, 5 A. Rava, Pietro Longhi (Florence, 1923), p.
1936. Catalogue no. 50. 152, ill.; copy in oil after engraving in the Dal
3 B. Burroughs, BULLETIN, vol. IX (1914), pp. Zotto collection, Venice, ibid., p. 29, ill.
75 ff. 6 This kinship was well understood by Goldoni
4 Cf. Sale Catalogue of the Volpi Collection, when he wrote a sonnet invoking Longhi's aid in
American Art Galleries, Dec. 19, 1917. (Nos. describing the charms of a newly married couple,
441-446 are the six paintings now owned by Mr. Giovanni Grimani and Catterina Contarini. See
Perera.) ibid., p. 9, note 3.

52

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 BULLETIN OF THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART

gay,
gay, rapidly
rapidly
movingmoving
life of Venice,
life which in JAPANESE
of Venice, which in HAIR ORNAMENTS
aa century
centurydedicated
dedicated
to pleasure
towas
pleasure
the play- was
AND theTOILET
play- ACCESSORIES
ground of Europe. In the comedies of the
one and in the paintings of the other, a swift The Exhibition of Japanese Hair
succession of people pass before us. Usually ments and Toilet Accessories, which
they are not members of the aristocracy, main on view in Gallery H I4 throug
who in the great palaces of Venice staged 29, is composed of objects selected f
formidable entertainments of unsurpassed collection of Baron Ino Dan, who is o
richness and splendor, but of the upper bour- the directors of the Kokusai Bunka Shinko-
geoisie and the lower nobility, who lived kai (Society for International Cultural Rela-
their lives in their well-kept homes, in the tions, Inc.), and from the Museum's own col-
coffee houses and gambling houses, and on
those canals so brilliantly described in the
paintings of Canaletto and Guardi. Life
was full of gossip, of intrigue, of practical
jokes, of music, and of dancing. The theater
was flourishing. New plays, pamphlets, son-
nets, and canzoni gave rise to eager discus-
sion. People flocked to see on exhibition an
elephant, a rhinoceros, a giant from Ireland,
and they listened to the fortuneteller and to
the quack who professed to cure all ills. Dur-
ing carnival time, which was made to last
six months of the year, masks were worn
everywhere. Penniless adventurers posed as
titled nobility, nobles roved about incognito,
ladies of rank went where they pleased. Life
was always filled with gaiety and delicious
surprises.
Many pleasant hours were also spent at
home. The lady adorned herself in her finery,
with her maids and perhaps her cicisbeo in
attendance. The morning cup of chocolate
SILVER-GILT HAIRPINS, JAPANESE
was an excuse for early callers. Then there
was a round of other activities-hairdress- lections. The exhibition is supplemented by
ing, the music lessons, the dancing lessons,illustrative color prints, some lent by Baron
the surreptitious arrival of letters, the cardDan, some from the Museum's collection.
games, the good meals. Above all there were Many of the enchanting little accessories,
the visitors, some known, some unknown, which make up the body of the exhibition,
and others unrecognized under the cover of were gathered personally by Baron Dan,
their masks. who, it should be mentioned, is the owner of
With sympathy and affection Goldoni a famous collection of Far Eastern art in-
and Longhi devoted themselves to describ- herited from his father. Because of his inter-
ing this life. Longhi was not a satirist like est in furthering Western appreciation of
Hogarth or a moralist like Greuze. He did things Japanese and in encouraging friendly
not laugh boisterously at the people he saw, relations between the two cultures, Baron
in the manner of Jan Steen, nor did he en- Dan, with the co6peration of a number of
dow them with the fanciful beauty of a museums in the United States, has made the
Boucher. He thought little and did not present exhibition accessible to an extensive
judge, and what he observed he recorded public.
with superb craftsmanship and a charming Far better than what we might say of the
lightness of touch. collection is the charming description in the
MARGARET D. SLOANE. catalogue accompanying the objects, from
53

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