Longhi, Pietro (pyā`trō lông`gē), 1702–85, Venetian genre painter. Longhi studied with Crespi in Bologna. He is best known for his small pictures depicting the life of upper-middle-class Venetians of his day. Pastel-colored, doll-like figures move stiffly but daintily through The Visit (Metropolitan Mus.) and Exhibition of a Rhinoceros (National Gall., London). Apart from early frescoes done in a more lively and vigorous style (Sagredo Palace, Venice) Longhi's artistic life was devoted primarily to his small-scale genre works. He duplicated several of his own works, many of which were also copied by his followers. Examples are in the Museo Correr, Venice; the National Gallery, Washington, D.C.; and the City Art Museum, St. Louis. His son,

Alessandro Longhi, 1733–1813, was a portrait painter and author of a work on the lives of 18th-century Venetian painters, for which he engraved the illustrations. A portrait attributed to him is in the Metropolitan Museum.

Longhi, Pietro

orig. Pietro Falca

(born 1702, Venice—died May 8, 1785, Venice) Italian painter. Son of a Venetian goldsmith, he studied painting in Bologna and thereafter became known for his scenes of everyday life among Venice's upper class and bourgeoisie. Popular for their charm and seeming naïveté, his paintings have a Rococo sense of the intimate and manifest the interest in social observation characteristic of the Enlightenment. He also painted landscapes and portraits.