especially those depicting brides to celebrate engagements, drew heavily from his painting Two Venetian Ladies (c.1490). Critical reception - then and now Carpaccio received modest acclaim during his lifetime, only occasionally creating works for the Venetian nobility. While regular employment was scarce, he primarily served a variety of working-class patrons that consisted of sailors, artisans, and tradesmen belonging to the scuole of the Albanesi and Schiavoni. He was also commissioned to create mainland works for Bergamo’s parish church of Grumello de’ Zanchi and a scuole in Udine. Outside of Venice, he received support from a few distinguished families, such as the della Rovere of Urbino. While assessments among historians and scholars vary, many identify Carpaccio as one of the most significant contemporaries of Giovanni Bellini. Despite residing in the shadows of his mentors, he received recognition from contempt scholars, writers, and critics. In his accounts on perspective, the Italian diplomat and architect, Daniele Barbaro, referenced Carpaccio's works. Similarly, in Giorgio Vasari’s 1568 series Le vite de’ più eccellenti pittori, scultori e architettori (The Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects), Carpaccio appeared at the forefront of a list of Venetian painters. This decision distinguished his artistic reputation from other painters in northern Italy. Interest in Carpaccio resurged in the nineteenth century as English writer and art critic John Ruskin celebrated the Venetian painter’s attention to detail. Ruskin likened Carpaccio’s works to a “...magic mirror which flashes back instantly whatever it sees beautifully arranged...” The nineteenth-century Italian painter Pompeo Marino Molmenti held a similarly high view, regarding Carpaccio as “...the most truthful chronicler of a people living in the full meridian of their glory.” In the twentieth century, increased recognition of Carpaccio’s works culminated in the 1963 retrospective exhibition that took place in the Doge’s Palace in Venice. According to several scholars it was this exhibition in Venice that in turn inspired a local chef, Giuseppe Cipriani (founder of Harry’s Bar in Venice), to name a dish (thinly sliced raw beef) after the painter and his use of vibrant reds. The first ever retrospective exhibition of his art outside of Italy, Vittore Carpaccio: Master Storyteller of Renaissance Venice is currently on view at the National Gallery of Art (November 20, 2022 – February 12, 2023) and is accompanied by a exhibition catalog with the same title. The exhibition brings together 45 paintings and 30 drawings made by Carpaccio, including