The merganser hunt

Duck hunting on the Venetian lagoon was a traditional aristocratic pastime with its own elaborate ritual of boats, trained birds, and social ceremony. The merganser — a diving duck of the lagoon — was a specific quarry whose hunting required specialist knowledge and equipment. Longhi's 1760 canvas at the Fondazione Querini Stampalia depicts this activity with the sociological attentiveness he brought to all Venetian leisure pursuits, situating the hunt within the lagoon landscape that surrounded and sustained the city. The Querini Stampalia's collection of Longhi's work is the largest and most significant outside public museums, reflecting the family's longstanding relationship with the painter.

The open lagoon setting gives Longhi an unusually expansive spatial field compared to his typical domestic interiors, requiring him to manage both the flat water and the distant island or mainland horizon. Figures in hunting boats are distributed across the middle ground, their activity creating compositional movement across the canvas.