A Lady receiving a Cavalier

This 1750 National Gallery canvas depicts a cavalier — a gentleman — being received by a lady, a social genre scene drawing on the well-established tradition of the galante visit that ran from Watteau through French and Italian Rococo painting. Venice's patrician culture placed great importance on the forms of sociability: how a lady received a visitor, what gestures of welcome or reserve she performed, were matters of social consequence that Longhi observed with consistent interest. The National Gallery's collection of Longhi works provides one of the best surveys outside Venice of his mature genre painting, and this example demonstrates his gift for staging social tension — the question of what will follow the visit — within a decorous compositional framework.

The two-figure composition concentrates attention on the exchange of gazes and gestures between lady and gentleman, with background space receding loosely behind them. Longhi modulates tone carefully across the figures to distinguish the brighter, lighter dress of the woman from the deeper tones of the man's coat.