Musical Festival Given by Cardinal de La Rochefoucauld at the Teatro Argentina, Rome

On 15 July 1747 the French ambassador in Rome, Cardinal de La Rochefoucauld, filled the Teatro Argentina for an evening of music. The wedding it celebrated had taken place at Versailles that February, when the Dauphin, son of Louis XV, married Maria Josepha of Saxony. It was his second marriage, his first wife, a Spanish princess, having died the summer before. The cardinal ordered this canvas from Giovanni Paolo Panini to keep the night, and it was still among his possessions when he died ten years later. Panini paints the house from behind the stalls, tier upon tier of red boxes packed with guests. The stage is built out as a temple floating on clouds, singers and players seated on them, and above the curtain two winged figures hold up the arms of France. Down in the aisle stands a small dog.