In one of the many rooms of a noble Venetian house a richly dressed young aristocratic woman is doing one of the main activities of the women at the time: preparing herself at the toilet. The young lady is surrounded by her maids who help her to get into her precious dress, prepare her hair and make-up. She is wearing a typical 18th-century dress with gold tones and colorful flowers. Her skirt is very wide at the sides as in the fashion of this period while the generous neckline of the dress is defined and enhanced by the underlying white lace and muslin blouse. The young aristocrat holds a flower in her left hand while she offers her right arm to the maid, who arranges her abundant white blouse that emerges from her sleeve. On the right there is a young waitress holding a mirror, placed on a wooden table, so that the lady can admire her appearance, while an old woman brings her coffee served on a silver set. The young woman with a smile on her face seems already satisfied with the result which she will soon see on her mirror, and the gesture of her arm and her posture show a certain affectation of movements. The room, decorated with brown tones, is very simple and you can only see the slightly damask wallpaper covering the walls, an abundant curtain on the right and a portrait of man wearing a red toga on the left. The painting is faithful to detail in describing the daily ritual of the aristocratic lady, also in the fashion and the furnishing of a Venetian house in the mid-18th century, influenced by the Anglo-Saxon models and especially those of William Hogarth, who was an attentive interpreter of the reality of his time. Longhi, however, limited himself to describing a small piece of the daily life of this privileged class, that he observed approvingly without any moral criticism towards these figures, which would have caused some controversy. This is how Longhi distinguishes himself from Hogarth, who expressed a strong social satire and moral protest against the vices of the existing society instead. Pietro Longhi’s painting was donated to Gallerie dell’Accademia together with similar style paintings that had the same subject and size by a noble Venetian Girolamo Contarini in 1838.

Pietro Longhi was born in Venice as Pietro Antonio Falca, a son of a silversmith and he got his name of art “Longhi” when he was already an adult. Originally from the Dorsoduro district, Pietro trained in his hometown first with his father, then with the Veronese painter Antonio Balestra, who greatly influenced his first works, based on the Venetian color tradition. After a period of sacred paintings and fresco decorations, such as the one in the staircase of Ca’ Sagredo, where he painted the Fall of the Giants, starting from the 1730s he was influenced by the naturalism of Giuseppe Maria Crespi, whose paintings he saw in Bologna. He began to paint real subjects such as peasants and rural people. However, from the 1740s’, he started to paint scenes with characters and interiors that resembled those of the Commedia dell’Arte. Longhi depicted conversations inside the famous Venetian salons, including the daily activities of the aristocracy – the dance lessons of a young lady, the toilet, the visit to a lady, while also depicting the bourgeoisie and common people – during important life moments, such as marriage. This kind of painting is strongly influenced by the English conversation scene, especially by the works of William Hogarth, which Longhi had seen in prints in Venice, but which differ from these examples because Pietro’s work tends to miss the satirical character and the ferocious moral and social criticism that is the essence of the English artist’s works. Longhi was also inspired by his fellow citizen Rosalba Carriera, who was highly sought after by the British people who stayed in Florence, and by the paintings of the French artist Antoine Watteau. Pietro became a successful artist and he was appreciated by his contemporaries, especially by the local aristocracy, for his capacity to depict Venice of the time and the life of all social classes. Among them was also playwright Carlo Goldoni, who praised the artist for his works. In fact, Longhi lived during the Venetian golden era in the 18th century, which was captured in his paintings before the final fall of the Republic and all its glory in 1797. In 1737 became a member of the Venetian Frangia, the guild of painters, while twenty years later, in 1756, he enrolled at the prestigious Accademia di Venezia, which was presided over by Giovanbattista Tiepolo at that time. Longhi was also an acknowledged portraitist for his ability to describe in detail the clothes and interiors with a realistic and subtle style. Longhi son Alessando was also an admired painter and his follower. Pietro died in Venice in 1785.

The Accademia of Venice was founded in 1750 and the opening of the Gallerie dell’Accademia was linked to it with primarily educational purpose: in 1803 a decree established the need to adjoin a gallery next to the school that was used by the students who studied painting and sculpting.

In 1817 the gallery was opened also to the public. The gallery is located in the area of Dorsoduro, down by the Accademia bridge, in a complex including the church of Santa Maria della Carità, the Canonici Lateranensi convent and the Scuola Grande of Santa Maria della Carità, all situated in a single floor, divided into twenty-fours and covering 5537 square meters.

The first section of the collection includes the Presentation of the Virgin at the Temple and the Pietà by Titian (1538) and the Triptych of the Madonna della Carità by Antonio Vivarini and Giovanni d’Alemagna (1480). The collection also includes essays by the students of the academy and a collection of plaster casts (hence the plural name, gallerie) which were put on display in the exhibition with success in 1817.

The collection was enriched with the paintings brought from defeated France and with the masterpieces that were left to the museum by great collectors. However, the paintings were always linked to the Venetian culture and this feature was tried to overcome for the whole 20th century. Among these works was the legacy of Felicita Reiner (in 1833, but only formalized in 1850), which included masterpieces such as Piero della Francesca’s St. Jerome, Giovanni Bellini’s Madonna and Child and Saints Catherine and Mary Magdalene. The legacy of Girolamo Contarini (1838) included 180 works, among them Madonna of the Small Trees and the Four Allegories by Bellini, and six paintings by Pietro Longhi.

The emperor Franz Joseph grew the collection with Nicolò di Pietro’s Madonna and Mantegna’s St. George, Memling’s Portrait of a Young Man and Giorgione’s Old Woman. The gallery was radically reorganized in 1895 by the director Giulio Cantalamessa. He excluded all the 19th century artists and for the first time the exhibition was organized chronologically. He coordinated the cycles of the School of St. Ursula by Vittore Carpaccio and the School of St. John the Evangelist by Cima da Conegliano, previously divided in various locations. Under the direction of Gino Fogolari (1905) the museum acquired other fundamental masterpieces, such as the Tempest by Giorgione and the Crucifixion by Luca Giordano and the Feast at the House of Simon by Bernardo Strozzi.

In the post-war period the museum performed various changes, for example Titian’s Assumption of the Virgin, which was supposed to be placed in a specially designed room, was returned to the Frari church in Venice instead. The 19th century works that were already excluded from the exhibition were sent to the deposit at the museum of Modern Art in Ca’ Pesaro and the foreign art in the Galleria Giorgio Franchetti in Ca’ d’Oro. In the 1940s’ Vittorio Moschini and Carlo Scarpa wanted to perform a modern reorganization of the museum, including the 19th century salons, but which resulted quite impractical in the end. In these years Francesco Guardi’s Fire in the Oil Depot of San Marcuola and Montagna’s St. Peter and Donor became part of the collection.

In 1987 director Sciré decided to increase the exhibition space opening the gallery on the fourth floor with the graphic collection and a new deposit was opened on the top floor of the Palladio building. In the same year the collection was enriched with two cherubs and two allegorical figures representing Justice and Patience, taken from Giorgio Vasari’s ceiling in a room of Palazzo Corner on the Grand Canal. Between 2001-2003 the gallery was renovated expanding the exhibition areas and adding modern lightning in the rooms.