Manner of Pietro Longhi

Anonymous sale, New York, Sotheby's, 1 February 2024, lot 517 (as circle of Pietro Longhi), for $5,334;

Where acquired by the previous owner.

This charming depiction of a declaration of love emulates the elegance of Pietro Longhi’s genre scenes. The composition derives from a lost painting by Longhi, known through an engraving of 1748 by Charles Joseph Flipart (1721–1797).¹ Two autograph preparatory drawings corroborate the existence of Longhi’s lost original; one sheet depicts the woman spinning and the other the seated woman reading and the standing gentleman.² The painting seen hanging on the wall in the background of Flipart's engraving and in the present canvas has been identified as the Adoration of the Shepherds by Antonio Balestra (1666–1740), from whom Longhi received his initial artistic training.

¹ An impression is today in the British Museum, London: museum no. 1865,1014.329; etching, 42 x 34.5 cm.; https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1865-1014-329.

² Venice, Museo Correr, inv. nos 465 and 572; for an illustration of both drawings, see T. Pignatti, Pietro Longhi, Paintings and Drawings, London 1969, p. 125, reproduced figs 470 and 471.

³ A. Mariuz, G. Pavanello, and G. Romanelli, Pietro Longhi, exh. cat., Milan 1993, p. 203, no. 91.