Pietro Longhi was renowned in Venice for his small paintings representing scenes of the foibles of eighteenth-century Venetian society as well as the curiosities and intrigues which carnival afforded, which were avidly collected by patrician Venetian families as well as Grand Tourists.
This painting of Edward Wortley Montagu, a renowned English eccentric & traveller, falls into a recognisable group of Longhi’s “curiosity” paintings relating closely to his elephant, rhino, lion, and Irish giant paintings.
These paintings of “Curiosities” were very much in vogue in 18th century Venice and satisfied a thirst for everything exotic and bizarre which was a hallmark of the enlightenment era and more particularly of Venice with its trade routes to the East and love of novelty.
