Painting and Merit

In the 1750s Venice finally opened a proper academy for its painters, and the men admitted to it were expected to hand over a picture. This is roughly what Longhi gave. He spent his career on portraits of real people, so an allegory like this is a rarity in his work. One figure is Painting herself; the other is Merit, the recognition a painter of the day hoped his skill would earn. He inscribed it plainly, La Pittura e il Merito, and dedicated it to John Udny, the British consul in Venice and a busy art collector. That dedication says a good deal about the city then, since English visitors on the Grand Tour and the agents who bought for them were among the steadiest patrons a Venetian painter had. Longhi later etched the same composition himself, so it travelled as a print as well as a canvas.