The Dancing Lesson

Pietro Longhi was the painter who, more than any other and with remarkable consistency, succeeded in portraying the society of eighteenth-century Venice: through his famous Dancing Lesson, he introduces us to a fundamental aspect of the education of young Venetian ladies. The work is part of a series of six canvases that we can imagine being dedicated to the daily activities of the Venetian lady: the others are The Little Concert, The Tailor, The Toilette, The Fortune Teller, and The Pharmacist, all of identical dimensions and stylistically homogeneous. The scene is set inside a small sitting room with rather sparse furnishings: a sofa upholstered in green satin, wall coverings of the same colour, a heavy velvet curtain on the right, a couple of chairs below, and a mirror on the wall; here, a young woman is receiving a private dance lesson from her master, while a violinist, standing slightly apart, provides the rhythm, and the girl's mother watches the scene while seated on a chair; on a stool, the master has placed his tricorne hat (the typical three-cornered Venetian hat) and his small sword. The Venetian painter observes the pure everyday intimacy of the society of his time with lucid precision and without emotional involvement, in accordance with an Enlightenment and scientific attitude. This interpretation, marked by great expressive simplicity, is nonetheless extraordinarily evocative.

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