Portrait of a Girl with a Dog

Alessandro Longhi · c. 1770

Medium

Oil on canvas

Original size

64.8 × 49.5 cm (25 1/2 × 19 1/2 in.); Framed: 77.8 × 63.5 × 9.6 cm (30 5/8 × 25 × 3 3/4 in.)

Currently held

Art Institute of Chicago

Movement

Rococo

"Portrait of a Girl with a Dog" carries the delicate warmth that defined Venetian Rococo portraiture at its most appealing — a young girl caught in an unguarded moment, her small dog adding a note of spontaneity to what might otherwise have been a formal, ceremonial composition. Alessandro Longhi was the son of Pietro Longhi, the celebrated recorder of Venetian everyday life, and he channelled that same observational spirit into his career as a portraitist. Where Pietro painted the rituals and diversions of Venetian society, Alessandro painted individuals — and his portraits consistently feel less like official records than like glimpses of genuine character. He favoured soft, luminous flesh tones and carefully rendered silks and velvets, qualities that place him among the most accomplished Venetian portraitists of the latter half of the eighteenth century. In 1762, Longhi published a written compendium of biographies of Venetian painters — a rare instance of a working artist doubling as a historian of his own tradition. This hand-painted oil reproduction is made to order on canvas, capturing the tender palette, fine detail, and quiet humanity that make the original so memorable.