O Caso Desesperado

By 1871 Venice had only just become part of the newly united Italy, five years earlier, and painters like Antonio Rotta were making a good living selling tender scenes of ordinary Venetian life to foreign visitors and collectors. This is one of them. A young girl in a Venetian shawl stands quietly in a cobbler's cluttered workshop while the old shoemaker examines her boot and, by his expression, delivers bad news. The case is hopeless, the boot beyond saving. An American collector, William Walters, bought the picture in 1878, which is how a small Venetian shop scene ended up in Baltimore.