(Venice 1688–1734)
A ball in honour of Anna Maria Luisa de’ Medici, Electress Palatine and daughter of the Grand Duke Cosimo III of Tuscany,
oil on canvas, 141 x 227 cm, framed

Provenance:
possibly collection of the Mocenigo family, Venice;
Collection of Dr. Paul Müller, Paris, circa 1914 (as Pietro Longhi);
with Galerie Brunner, Paris, 1914 (lent by Dr. Paul Müller);
Private collection, Milan, by 1962;
Private European collection

Exhibited:
Paris, Galerie Brunner, Exposition rétrospective des Peintres de Venise (XVIIIe et XIXe siècles), 18 May – 20 June 1914, no. 47

Literature:
Exposition rétrospective des Peintres de Venise (XVIIIe et XIXe siècles), Paris 1914, p. 28, no. 47 (as Pietro Longhi);
A. Morassi, Preludio per Antonio Stom detto il “Tonino”, in: Pantheon, XX, 1962, pp. 297 and 304-305, figg. 19-20 (as Antonio Stom);
P. Kragelund, Popes, kings and the Medici in the eighteenth-century fasti of the Palazzo Mocenigo di S. Stae in Venice, in: Journal of the History of Collections, 22, 2010, p. 215 (as Antonio Stom)

The present painting depicts an episode of the life of eighteenth century Venetian nobility, and is represented in a lively and expressive manner by Antonio Stom, a painter who is a trait-d’union between the seventeenth century views by Giuseppe Heintz and the great period of the vedutisti of the eighteenth century.
In this large canvas, a great hall is depicted wherein a celebration in honour of the noble lady dressed in mourning, seated beneath the red baldacchino on the right, takes place. The guests enter the hall in pairs while the court ladies are seated in armchairs arranged around the edge of the room; the orchestra can be seen on the high balcony to the left.

The same episode is recorded in another painting by Antonio Stom, of a similar composition but of vertical format (Palazzo Mocenigo, Venice, see fig. 1), formerly in the collection of the Mocenigo family. The latter canvas belongs to a series of three works by Antonio Stom conserved in the Venetian palazzo. The series commemorates three moments connected with a historic event related to the Venetian Mocenigo family.

Morassi believed that the historic event referred to the entry of Amalia, the daughter of the King of Saxony, to Padua in 1737 (see literature). Subsequently, De Zucco identified the lady receiving tribute in the Palazzo Mocenigo canvases, as Violante Beatrice of Bavaria, the widow of Ferdinand III de’Medici, who was received in Verona in 1717 (see L. De Zucco, Per Antonio Stom, pittore veneto del Settecento, in: Arte in Friuli. Arte a Trieste, 1976, pp. 54-55). More recently, Kragelung finally identified the noble lady as Anna Maria Luisa de’ Medici, the last of the House of Medici and daughter of Grand Duke Cosimo III, who after the death of her husband, the Palatine Elector Johann Wilhelm, returned from Dusseldorf to Tuscany. During this journey, she was received in Verona in October 1717 by the Grancapitano, Alvise IV Marcantonio Mocenigo, and she resided there at the Marchesi Carlotti palace. The three Mocenigo canvases therefore represent Anna Maria Luisa de’Medici in procession across Verona, The Electress received in the courtyard of the Palazzo del Grancapitano and the Ball in honour of the Electress respectively.

The present painting is also a representation of the celebration held in honour of Anna Maria Luisa de’Medici in the Palazzo del Grancapitano in Verona on 9 October 1717. When this painting was considered by Morassi during the 1950s, the work belonged to a private collection along with another work that depicted Anna Maria Luisa de’Medici received in the courtyard of the Palazzo del Grancapitano. This painting is very similar to the canvas of the same subject conserved in Palazzo Mocenigo (see literature). As Kragelund mentions in his article (see literature), it is very likely that the present painting originally formed part of the group that belonged to the Mocenigo collection, considering that the group of canvases by Antonio Stom, consisted of at least five works, representing the family’s ‘fasti’ or glories.

The celebrations in honour of Anna Maria Luisa de’Medici were described in detail by Pietro Gradenigo in the manuscript Memorie del passaggio per lo stato Veneto di principi…esteri 1347-1773, which is conserved in the Biblioteca Marciana in Venice (see Kragelund in literature). In the present canvas, the moment is captured with great pictorial vivacity and a wealth of invention, enriching the scene with exquisite details like the great chandeliers that hang from the ceilingas well as the candelabra on the walls providing artificial illumination to the scene. The painter’s brush indulges in realistic details such as the smoke that appears to sway in the movement of the air as it rises from the many candles, or the variety of expressions shown by the many people present.

This canvas anticipates the trend of interior subjects, which found its apogee during the mid-eighteenth century, especially with Pietro Longhi and Francesco Guardi.