Pietro Longhi (Venice, 1701 – 1785), The Confession

Pietro Longhi (Venice, 1701 – 1785)

The Confession

Oil on canvas, 54,5 x 44,5 cm

with frame 67 x 59 cm

The canvas in question depicts a subject, The Confession, revisited in several variations by Pietro Longhi. This particular model is based on a work by Longhi housed at the Galleria Querini Stampalia in Venice, from which Marco Alvise based an engraving, now housed at the Luigi Bailo Museum in Treviso. Upon careful observation, however, one can note that the engraving exhibits slight differences from the work at the Stampalia; differences that become similarities when compared to the work analyzed here. Note, in this regard, the presence of the dog, the closed, rather than open, eyes of the female figure in the center, and the symbol in the upper right, instead of the clock.

Regarding the canvas under consideration, Longhi devoted himself several times to the subject of the Sacraments and the Confession itself. Another similar work is exhibited at the Uffizi in Florence.

The Venetian painter Pietro Longhi, real name Pietro Antonio Falca, was born in Venice in 1701. His early training took place in his father's silversmith workshop. From an early age, Pietro showed a strong aptitude for art, and his father encouraged him to study drawing. He met the renowned painter Antonio Balestra, with whom he worked, learning the art of painting. From around 1734, Longhi's work temporarily abandoned religious subjects to focus on genre paintings. Longhi also moved to Bologna, where he became acquainted with the work of Gambarini, a refined genre painter. Upon his return to Venice, he devoted himself to painting scenes of everyday life among the Venetian bourgeoisie, following the style of Nicolas Lancret, albeit with a more ironic tone. His paintings provide a detailed documentation of Venetian life, demonstrating the artist's interest in the social life of the time. In the first half of the 1950s, he devoted himself to depicting careers, that is, scenes of real and common popular and bourgeois activities. Around the 1960s, his tones became brownish with sloppy perspective lines, very similar to Rembrandt's style.

In 1763 Pietro Longhi was the director of the Pisani Academy of Drawing and Engraving and devoted himself to portraits with the help of his son Alessandro.

The great Venetian playwright Carlo Goldoni (1707-1793) praised Longhi's dedication to depicting the foibles of contemporary society. Indeed, Longhi's work, full of humor and irony, is a bit like Goldoni's comedies. The artist is also cited in Carlo Goldoni's "Comedies." Their work moved parallel on two distinct artistic fronts: theater and art.

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