A Nobleman kissing a Lady

This 1746 canvas at the National Gallery depicts an act of physical gallantry — a gentleman kissing a lady's hand or cheek — within the conventions of Rococo social ritual that governed encounters between the sexes in patrician Venice. The kiss as social gesture occupied a carefully calibrated range from formal courtesy to intimate suggestion, and Longhi's scene leaves the precise register productively ambiguous. The mid-1740s mark Longhi's mature period, when his social genre scenes had already achieved critical and commercial success among Venetian collectors. The National Gallery acquired several Longhi works that collectively provide one of the best surveys of his genre subjects outside Venice.

The proximity of the two figures creates a charged spatial dynamic, the scene's intimacy registered through their positioning relative to each other and to any chaperones or witnesses who may be present. Longhi renders the gestures with sufficient specificity to make the social register readable.