the puppet-like delicacy of the persons, seem to suggest a satirical perspective of the artists toward his subjects. That this puppet-like quality was an intentional conceit on Longhi's part is attested by the skillful rendering of figures in his earlier history paintings and in his drawings. Longhi's many drawings, typically in black chalk or pencil heightened with white chalk on colored paper, were often done for their own sake, rather than as studies for paintings. In the 1750s, Longhi—like Crespi before him—was commissioned to paint seven canvases documenting the seven Catholic sacraments. These are now in Pinacoteca Querini Stampalia along with his scenes from the hunt (Caccia). From 1763 Longhi was Director of the Academy of Drawing and Carving. From this period, he began to work extensively with portraiture, and was actively assisted by his son, Alessandro. Longhi died on 8 May 1785, following a short illness. Legacy Celebrated genre canvases were produced by other contemporary artists in Italy such as Gaspare Traversi and Giuseppe Maria Crespi. Longhi had not only departed the world of grand mythology of history that often allured the Venetian nobility, but also taken residence in its intimate present, as few painters in Venice had ever done. If Canaletto and Guardi are our window to the external rituals of the republic, Longhi is our window to what happened inside rooms. The critic Bernard Berenson states that: Longhi painted for the picture-loving Venetians their own lives in all their ordinary domestic and fashionable phases. In the hair-dressing scenes, we hear the gossip of the periwigged barber; in the dressmaking scenes, the chatter of the maid; in the dancing-school, the pleasant music of the violin. There is no tragic note anywhere. Everybody dresses, dances, makes bows, takes coffee, as if there were nothing else in the world that wanted doing. A tone of high courtesy, of great refinement, coupled with an all-pervading cheerfulness, distinguishes Longhi's pictures from the works of Hogarth, at once so brutal and so full of presage of change. Masks In numerous paintings, Longhi depicts masked figures engaging in various acts from gambling to flirting. For example, in the foreground of Longhi's painting The Meeting of the Procuratore and His Wife is a woman being greeted by a man that is presumed to be her husband. The setting is of a type of gathering place usually for masked people to engage in private matters such