A man playing the colascione by a river

This sheet, carrying the attribution of the Reliable Venetian Hand, reveals more than any other of Longhi's surviving studies the strong influence of Giuseppe Maria Crespi. Along with Gambarini and Ceruti, Longhi had gone to Bologna to be taught by the master. As a student of Balestra, Longhi had been trained as a history painter and it represented a major change of direction when in 1741, he became a genre painter. It has often been stressed that his genre scenes were quite unlike anything previously produced in Venice and that they betrayed a French influence. Pignatti pointed out that the presence of the French engraver Joseph Flipart in Venice from 1737 to 1750 surely had a major influence on Longhi's artistic development, T. Pignatti, Les dessins de Pietro Longhi, in Dessins Vénitiens du dix-huitième siècle, exhib. cat., Brussels, 1983, p. 115. The present drawing in its unusually finished technique recalls the series of Cris which many French contemporary artists such as Bouchardon produced in Italy. The expressive face of the musician with high cheekbones recalls in turn the physiognomy of Crespi's figures.
The instrument being played was imported from the Middle East in the 16th Century and was particularly popular in Southern Italy in the 17th Century.