The Tailor

A tailor holds up a finished dress for a young Venetian woman to see, and that small transaction is the whole subject. Longhi painted it in 1741, in the same years he began recording the private hours of the city's nobility, the fitting, the lesson, the morning visit. In 1753 the Venetian writer Orlandi praised this new kind of picture for its truthfulness, saying you could recognise the actual people and rooms in them. The setting is compact and lit as if by candle, the figures close together in a plain interior. The work was probably commissioned by Nicolò Venier, a Procurator of Saint Mark's.