c. 1764-1770

Summer

Italian, 1735 - 1803

In this idyllic scene, a young man plays a stringed instrument for his enthralled beloved. His pose and costume are derived from paintings of pastoral landscapes by sixteenth-century Venetian masters. The young woman holds a ventola or ventarola, a fan consisting of a piece of paper or fabric attached to a stick. Popular in Venice beginning in the Renaissance, ventola were often decorated with love poems or romantically themed prints. Eighteenth-century print publishers, such as the Remondini family, produced images specifically for these fans, which were then sold by vendors.